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What is the most versatile sizing value for fonts? Percents?EM's?
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What is the most versatile sizing value for fonts? Percents?EM's? Viken Karaguesian 01-07-2008
Posted by David E. Ross on January 8, 2008, 1:29 am
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 On 1/7/2008 6:21 PM, Viken Karaguesian wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Thanks to everyone for replying. I know the concept of setting font sizes in
> percentages for scalability. I prefer to do it that way but I was just
> wondering if there was a better way to scale fonts across screen
> resolutions. I'm actually OK with the way the fonts look, so I think I'll
> just leave it alone. I was just wondering if there was a way to appease the
> complainers :>)
>
> Thanks.
>

The point of my prior reply was that users will set their own default
font sizes according to how they have set their window sizes and monitor
resolutions, in a way that optimizes readability for the characteristics
of their own eyesight. This MUST be brought to the attention of your
complainers. They might complain, but visitors to your Web site will
complain even more if you accede to those within your organization who
want specific fonts sizes. The end result of giving in to your internal
complainers could be quite negative for the organization.

--
David Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

Have you been using Netscape and now feel abandoned by AOL?
Then use SeaMonkey. Go to <http://www.seamonkey-project.org/>.

Posted by Sherman Pendley on January 7, 2008, 9:15 pm
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> Just an observation here: the CSS newsgroup
> (comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets) is totally dead. Why?...

I'm seeing some recent traffic on that group with the server I use. But
then, my ISP contracts their usenet service through Giganews, and they're
insanely reliable. Maybe your ISP is missing messages?

> Anyway here's my discussion point: What is the most versatile value to use
> to set font-size? I set my font size in percentages. I set the main font
> size in the body tag (which everything will inherit), then adjust other
> sizes in relation to that (for headers, fine print, etc).

Sounds fine.

> I run a site for a small non-profit. A couple of people from the
> organization have commented to me that they think the font size is too big
> (I set it to 95%) when viewed at 1024x768 resolution. They want me to reduce
> it. The problem is that the fonts look small when viewed at 1280x1024. If I
> reduce it any further, the fonts will be really tiny and difficult to read
> as the resolutions increase.
>
> So, what to do?

Set the font size for the body element to 100%; that will be precisely the
default size that a user has set for his or her browser. If that's too big
or too small for a particular user, they should change their browser defaults
to suit their monitor size and/or resolution.

sherm--

--
My blog: http://shermspace.blogspot.com
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net

Posted by Jukka K. Korpela on January 8, 2008, 3:36 am
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Scripsit Viken Karaguesian:

> Just an observation here: the CSS newsgroup
> (comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets) is totally dead. Why?...

This is not a group for discussing the life of other groups. And the
assumed death of another group is not an excuse for posting off-topic
questions here. You cannot even plea ignorance, since you apparently
knew the right group, just refused to use it.

> Anyway here's my discussion point: What is the most versatile value
> to use to set font-size?

And you're trying to re-raise an old frequently asked question without
having checked the FAQs.

Please keep your current forged e-mail address until you have a clue and
you stop creating disturbance. Thank you in advance.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/


Posted by Stan Brown on January 8, 2008, 6:00 am
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Mon, 7 Jan 2008 19:13:44 -0500 from Viken Karaguesian
> Just an observation here: the CSS newsgroup
> (comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets) is totally dead. Why?

Something is wrong on your end. There are new articles there every
day.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/05/05/why_we_wont_help_you

Posted by Stan Brown on January 8, 2008, 6:02 am
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Mon, 7 Jan 2008 19:13:44 -0500 from Viken Karaguesian
> What is the most versatile value to use
> to set font-size? I set my font size in percentages.

Good. 100% is the correct size for body text.

> A couple of people from the organization have commented to me that
> they think the font size is too big (I set it to 95%) when viewed
> at 1024x768 resolution.

No doubt they call the TV station to complain that the programs are
too loud (or not loud enough).

Tell them to adjust their browsers properly, and change your 95% to
100%.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/05/05/why_we_wont_help_you

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