[WEB4LIB] re: point sizes vs. absolute sizes in CSS

[Chan, Ian]

I recently inserted javascript to our web pages to write in the style sheet
link depending on the browser.  The stylesheet for netscape uses small while
the ie css uses x-small. 

The script is from irt.org.  

if (document.getElementById)
    document.write('<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/first.css"
type="text/css">');
else if (document.layers)
    document.write('<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/first_nn.css"
type="text/css">');
else if (document.all)
    document.write('<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/first.css"
type="text/css">');

I haven't encountered any problems thus far.  Please let me know if it works
for you.  


Ian Chan
Librarian
Seattle Central Community College
(206) 587-6336
http://www.seattlecentral.org/faculty/iachan/
http://www.sccd.ctc.edu/~cclib/
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff.Kuntzman at UCHSC.edu [mailto:Jeff.Kuntzman at UCHSC.edu]
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001 4:11 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] re: point sizes vs. absolute sizes in CSS


(sorry if this has been covered before)
I am struggling with converting a large website from
font tags to CSS, and ran up against a problem with
Netscape and specifying absolute sizes in CSS.
Previous messages noted that it's better to use font-size:
x-small or font-size: xx-small - as opposed to point sizes.
The problem for me is that NS4 and IE
render this style of css differently; in fact xx-small
is so small as to be illegible in Netscape.

There is a pretty good explanation of the problem at 
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/fear4/4.html

I need to render 8pt Helvetica/Arial (that's a campus 
standard). There are a still lot of Netscape users at our
campus. If anyone has a solution (other than, don't use 
text that small!) please let me know. I just found out 
Netscape on the Mac isn't at all happy with stylesheets 
that specify small point size.

This is always a great list, by the way!
Jeff Kuntzman
Internet Librarian
Univ. Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denison Library
jeff.kuntzman at uchsc.edu