Subject: [css-d] Mozilla vs IE6 PC font sizing

From: joel.young at ns.sympatico.ca (Joel Young)
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 23:02:51 -0300

Hi everyone,

I searched the list archives for an answer but couldn't find one, so it's 
either well hidden or non-existent.

I can't get Mozilla and IE6 PC to compromise on setting a global font size. 
Here's what I did to test (and btw, Opera 7 acts the same as IE6 in all 
cases)...

On a page with no other styling, I did this:

      body {font-size: .7em}

In Mozilla, all my text is exactly the size I expected and wanted it to be. 
In IE6, there's no effect. The font size stays at the default 1em (100% / 
16px).

So to compensate, and hopefully make IE6 behave, I did this:

      body {font-size: .7em}
      td {font-size: .7em}

This puts IE6 the way I want it, but transforms Mozilla into miniscule text 
that Superman couldn't read.

So I tried this, thinking it would take care of both, since all I'm doing 
is styling the td's for the page, and td's are the same in all browsers - 
aren't they?....

      (no body styling this time)
      td {font-size: .7em}

That looks great in IE6, and only brings Mozilla up to legible with a 
strong pair of glasses.

All I want is to set a global font size, and make other sizing changes 
where necessary. So what's the secret?

---

From: ckestes at bewb.org (Jason Estes)
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 21:17:39 -0500

This is from the wiki http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=UsingEms

A word of caution concerning IE. Be careful using ems. The most recent
versions of IE for Windows tend to flummox text with a font-size less
than 1em ("0.5em", for instance). Percentages tend to work more
predictably, and (for who knows what reason) are usually more accurate
(possibly rounding errors?) than their em equivalents. Please note that
this applies only to the font-size and line-height properties. All other
properties for which ems are suitable (margins, padding, width and
height, among others) are not so for percentages, since the latter are
calculated according to the dimensions of parent elements. - ShawnAllen

...and the other problem with EMs in IE is the resizing of them. If for
instance you set the root element (either <body> or <html>) to
font-size:1em, then just setting View > Text Size to "smaller" can cause
the text to become unreadable.

Jason Estes
The BEWB
www.bewb.org

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] 
> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Joel Young
> Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2003 8:03 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: [css-d] Mozilla vs IE6 PC font sizing
> 
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
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---

From: ckestes at bewb.org (Jason Estes)
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 21:26:22 -0500

> Here's what I did to test (and btw, Opera 7 acts the same as 

I tested this and it seemed to work in both IE 6 and Moz 1.3 and Opera
7.1 on WinXP

<style type="text/css">
body,td {font-size:0.7em;}
</style>

Basically I just set both properties in the same statement and then it
doesn't inherit it in size it more in Moz, and stays constant in IE and
Opera

Looks good in all of them.

Jason Estes
The BEWB
www.bewb.org

---

From: joel.young at ns.sympatico.ca (Joel Young)
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 00:31:16 -0300

>Looks good in all of them.

For some reason that's not working for me, and I'm using WinXP with the 
same browser versions you listed.  I have the IE browser set to 'Smaller', 
and Moz at '100%', which I believe are their defaults. Or not? But still, 
resizing Moz doesn't help at all. Even at 120% the text is tiny. I have no 
clue.

The other thing is, and I should've mentioned this before, my tests were 
only with no other styling in <body>, but for the actual page I'll be 
doing, <body> will contain more than that, and I don't want the <td>'s to 
have all those attributes. Sorry for not saying that before.

It's late where I am, so I'll pick this up tomorrow and see what's what.

Thanks!

Joel

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From: mrmazda at ij.net (Felix Miata)
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 23:44:12 -0400

> and Moz at '100%', which I believe are their defaults. Or not? But still,

Moz defaults to 16px regardless of other settings. Moz font sizes are
not impacted by system DPI setting except for the menu/chrome text, and
page text sized in points.

IE defaults to medium. What medium (or other sizes) means to IE depends
on the system DPI setting, which defaults to 96. Medium at 96 DPI is
16px. You can find other combinations at
http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/absolute-sizes-IE6.html

> resizing Moz doesn't help at all. Even at 120% the text is tiny. I have no

Are you using an ancient Mozilla version?
-- 
"The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of
governmental power."                General Douglas MacArthur

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata  ***  http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/auth.html

---

From: rijk at opera.com (Rijk van Geijtenbeek)
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 09:42:17 +0200

On Sun, 27 Apr 2003 21:26:22 -0500, Jason Estes <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> I can't get Mozilla and IE6 PC to compromise on setting a
>> global font size. Here's what I did to test (and btw, Opera 7 acts the 
>> same as IE6 in all cases)...

In Opera 7 and MSIE, you'll get behavior like Mozilla when you trigger 
Standards mode. In Quirks mode rendering, font-sizes don't inherit into a 
tables... In Opera 5-6 and MSIE 4-5.5 you are stuck, as these browsers 
don't have a Standards mode.

> Looks good in all of them.

It shouldn't work that way according to the specs (TD fonts should be sized 
at .49 of the default size...), so it will probably break in Opera 7, MSIE 
6 and Mozilla when you trigger Standards mode. But if you make sure to 
trigger Quirks mode, this might be a compromise because it will also work 
in MSIE 4-5.5 and Opera 4-6.

-- 
 If you don't like having choices    |  Rijk van Geijtenbeek
 made for you, you should start      |   Documentation & QA
 making your own. -  Neal Stephenson |  mailto:[email-masked] M

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From: joel.young at ns.sympatico.ca (Joel Young)
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 06:19:14 -0300

>Are you using an ancient Mozilla version?

No. I'm using 1.3... I use the most recent release of any browser I test on.