Posted by Spartanicus on 06/06/05 22:55

"Alan J. Flavell" <flavell@ph.gla.ac.uk> wrote:

>That gives us yet more reason *not* to specify Verdana in an author
>stylesheet.
>
>I'm sure it's a perfectly fine choice for an individual to make in the
>privacy of their own browser, and at a size of their choosing

User setting: Verdana reduced in size by a factor Y.
Author setting: Verdana reduced in size by a factor Y.
Result: Verdana reduced in size by a factor 2xY = microfont.

The same thing but somewhat less drastic happens when using most other
sans serif fonts as the user font.

To avoid this, specifying a sans serif font as the user preferred font
should be accompanied with a browser minimum font size setting equal to
what the user wants to see as the body font size.

This in turn prevents non body text from being displayed at a reduced
size which results in losing the ability to de-emphasize text. For
example I like my body text displayed in Verdana @ 13px, but I can
comfortably read Verdana down to 10px. Due to the necessary minimum font
size setting of 13px I see content that has appropriately been sized
down at the bigger size of 13px. This makes it harder to distinguish
body text from for example side bar/panel content.

Many find TNR and most other serif fonts not pleasant to read on screen
@ the typical body text size. I'm sympathetic to authors who want to
suggest a sans serif font for their sites for the many users that don't
change the default font in their browsers. Some suggest that authors
should not do that and that they should instead show the user how to
change the font locally. This I consider bad advice, a IE user cannot
specify a minimum font size.

--
Spartanicus

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