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Posted by Roy Schestowitz on 07/21/05 05:09
dorayme wrote:
>> From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@schestowitz.com>
>>
>> crjunk@earthlink.net wrote:
>>
>>> First, let me say that I know that doing something like preventing the
>>> user from changing the font size is never a good thing from a usability
>>> standpoint.
>>>
>>> Let me explain why I'm trying to do this. I'm trying to recreate an
>>> online payment invoice that looks very similar to the hard copy invoice
>>> we mail out to our customers. The user will be able to print out this
>>> invoice from their web browser and mail it in along with their payment.
>>> The web browser printout needs to be similar in size to the invoice we
>>> mail out. I would prefer to create the invoice as a PDF for the user,
>>> but because of deadline time constraints, I do not have this luxury.
>>>
>>> I have found examples on how to limit the size of text in IE, but this
>>> solution does not work in FireFox. Is there a way to "lock" the size
>>> of text in Fireox?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> CR Junk
>>
>> I don't think you can do that and I think you must never force fonts to
>> have a fixed size. This will stir up an outrage among people whose sight
>> is poorer than yours. Some seniors I know prefer Firefox because of the
>> powerful font scaling support (SHIFT accelarator and CTRL+-). Firefox
>> gives them the 'power' to read pages even when the Web developer is
>> overly adamant.
>>
>> If you want to generate PDF's on-to-fly, you have a flexible package that
>> you can use. It took me only an hour or two to make an HTML->PDF feature
>> work.
>>
>> http://schestowitz.com/Weblog/archives/2005/07/12/wordpress-and-pdf/
>>
>> The package is widely used in the Open Source community. Since you can
>> never fight a browser that puts the user in control, you may wish to just
>> add a friendly warning that discourages users from changing the default
>> font size. Also don't forget that pages will be rendered differently on
>> different platforms, browsers and devices.
>>
>> Roy
>
>>
>
>
> Would there not be a way to simply fix the font size in a stylesheet for
> printing only while yet leaving the screen image free to be seen at
> whatever font size the user finds comfortable?
>
> dorayme
I would know the answer because I almost never print anything. I imagine the
printer will receive the input in a WYSIWYG fashion, so if print.css is
selected and displayed on the screen, problems will arise. I don't know
what will happen if the browser or O/S is configured to choose print.css
'behind the scenes'.
Neredbojias actually pointed out a good solution that I hadn't thought of.
From experience, however, even scaling fonts based on the window
(technically speaking, _visible frame_ rather, which excludes toolbars and
window decorations) size is not something you can rely on. It does
/roughly/ the right thing and I don't know how many browsers support it.
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz
http://Schestowitz.com
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