Posted by Spartanicus on 06/07/05 10:58

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

>> >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.
>
>Sorry, that doesn't rhyme. The user's choice is the user's choice.
>It isn't "reduced" by anything. Sure: it's likely to be a smaller
>choice than they would have made if they'd used some other font. But
>it's still their choice.

You're right. Another attempt: Authors often specify a size reduction of
Verdana based on the usual pre configured browser serif font, often TNR
@ 16px. Configuring Verdana as the user preferred font @ a smaller size
like 13px therefore results in microfonts for the user on such sites if
no additional measures are taken.

That conflicts with your unreserved endorsement of Verdana as a user
font. Verdana causes as much or more difficulties when used as a user
font.

>> Author setting: Verdana reduced in size by a factor Y.
>
>User's defence: the minimum font size setting (in a good browser)

That possible option does not nullify the drawbacks that result from
using Verdana, if it did then you'd might as well say that there are no
issues with author suggested reduced Verdana body fonts.

Using Verdana as the user font with a minimum font size setting on the
www often causes it's own set of problems like text breaking out of it's
container, or overlapping text, even on relatively well coded sites,
example: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/spartanicus/verdana_trouble.png

>, or
>the "ignore author font settings" in the operating system component
>that thinks it's a web browser.

That causes even more problems on www sites than using Verdana as a user
font with a minimum font size.

Leaving the browser's font setting at the pre configured serif font
prevents these problems. This is why it's imo bad form to simply advise
users to configure their browser font and size to something they like.

>> Many find TNR and most other serif fonts not pleasant to read on
>> screen @ the typical body text size.
>
>Things are slowly improving. Some years back we could confidently say
>that although, on a nicely printed page, serif fonts were acknowledged
>to be better, nevertheless on a computer screen the greater
>readability of sans fonts at low resolution meant that they were the
>natural choice for screen display.
>
>But considerable improvements have been made both in display
>resolution and in rendering technology, so it's undergoing a
>changeover, the way that it seems to me.

Increasing screen resolution causes yet more issues. Current mainstream
OSs use bitmapped UI widgets, these shrink on a higher resolution
screen. As a result the number of screens on the market with a
resolution higher than ~100PPI is very limited. I've used a 148PPI
laptop, using it was a royal pain due to this problem.

If by "improvement rendering technology" you are referring to anti
aliasing of fonts, this can only be achieved by enlarging the text. It
may look nice, but at the expense of efficient use of screen real
estate. I continue to prefer the smaller non anti aliased normal text
and UI fonts used by Windows systems to the bigger anti aliased fonts
that can be generated by for example Linux.

--
Spartanicus

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