marbux wrote:
On 11/11/05, Felix Miata
wrote:
3mm and 3pt aren't even close to the same thing, so following that advice could cause a pretty big mess. 3pt is 3/72" (0.04167"), while 3mm is 0.1181", nearly three times as much.
I phrased that poorly. What I meant was that people could use the more familiar point size conventions rather than the off-topic millimeter standard employed on the web site's example code. I did not intend to imply that 3-point type would be a useful setting. I had a 25-year-plus career as a professional typographer, beginning at age 10, before a career change in my 40's. In my considered opinion, type sizes should *never* be specified in anything but points because it encourages to the very type of misunderstanding that you describe. The point system of measurement for type size has an oral and written tradition spanning more than 500 years of western civilization.
That position a very logical one to take, but only until you understand the critical distinctions between printing on paper and "printing" to the world wide web, where you have no real idea of the actual size of anything displayed except on your own equipment. The user has ultimate control of several variables, including browser default text size, screen resolution, DPI, available fonts, and display size. Visit these links to get the general idea of the DPI problem that specifically makes points unsuitable for publishing to the web: http://style.cleverchimp.com/font_size/points/font_wars.GIF http://style.cleverchimp.com/font_size/points/dump.html In addition, neither px nor pt should be used for sizing any text expected to be viewed in M$IE, because of that old browser's inability to override inappropriately sized text, and change its size to something usable by the particular viewer. I have additional links to web text sizing and other web accessibility issues at http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/wauth2.html -- "I can do all things through Him who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/