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Posted by Alan J. Flavell on 10/24/05 23:39
On Mon, 24 Oct 2005, Arne wrote:
> So why not use Arial with 10-11px if size in pixels necessarily want
> to be used, insted of Verdana 9px.
As an author writing for the web, you should *not* be using px as a
text size unit at all. The specific numbers, or the specific font
names, are not the point, at this level of the choice - the author
should simply not be doing it at all. And the same goes for absolute
size units (pt, mm, whatever).
(Stylesheets that are specifically for some other purpose, e.g print,
could well be different. I'm not dealing with those here.)
The main reasons are 1. it doesn't work (because users' displays
mostly aren't calibrated), and 2. even if it *did* work, it wouldn't
be what users need, in general. Yeah, I know the arguments which boil
down to "it's what the designer wants, and it's good enough for most
web users, so there", but I don't care for that argument myself.
If you base your sizing on the user's configured default, then pretty
much the worst that can happen is that they get the font size that
Bill seems to think they want, rather than the one that the designer
thinks they want. Who can say whether the designer knows better what
that kind of user wants than Bill does? For sure Bill has made far
more out of his business than any web designer is ever likely to.
But, even better, those *discerning* users who made a choice (or don't
you want discerning users to visit your web sites?) will get what they
chose, whereas they usually have to put up with designers who argue
with their choice - sometimes so badly that they need to fight back.
best
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