[Web4lib] Blockquote, italics and IE6

[VanderHart, Robert]

I'm developing a website that uses several "pull quotes" in the body of
the text.  I'm using the blockquote element and a stylesheet to set
apart longer quotes and make the font style italic.  Unfortunately,
IE6's rendering of the pages with blockquotes[1] is broken, causing the
center div containing the text to shift down the page to just below the
longer sidebar.  The strangest thing about this buggy rendering is that
if I click the "Restore Down" button and then slowly drag the right edge
of the window to the right, the center div will jump back to its proper
position at one point then jump back down as I keep expanding the
window.  After a lot of trial and error, I isolated the problem to the
italic styling of the blockquote; when I remove the font-style
declaration the page renders OK.  When I Google'd the issue, I found at
least one site mentioning similar behavior in IE6[2].

Has anyone successfully dealt with this issue?  Thanks in advance for
any help.

[1]
http://library.umassmed.edu/~rvanderh/newsite3/omha/fmch/specialty3.cfm
[2] http://simonwillison.net/2003/Apr/9/italicBlockquotesCauseScrollba/


Robert Vander Hart
Electronic Resources Librarian
Lamar Soutter Library
University of Massachusetts Medical School
Worcester  MA  01655

Voice: 508-856-3290
Email: Robert.VanderHart at umassmed.edu
Web: http://library.umassmed.edu