Posted by Beauregard T. Shagnasty on 11/13/06 23:52

K A Nuttall wrote:

> David Smithz wrote:
>
>> Any guidelines greatly appreciated.
>
> Get a book called Bulletproof Web Design. I read it this summer -
> fantastic.
>
> I recommend setting BODY to font-size:medium*, then your page wrapper
> DIV to font-size: 62.5%. That sets a base font size of 10px. Then set
> sections within the page using percent or ems, like 120% (=12px), or
> 1.5em (=15px).

No, no, no ... Set your body font to 100% (instead of the keyword), and
then only set headings and footers to other sizes. That is all you need.

http://k75s.home.att.net/fontsize.html

For divs/columns set them with em units and all will grow appropriately
when a visitor increases font size. Most people won't need to though, if
you start at 100% - which, by chance - is *everyone's* default preferred
size.

> That way, you can predict roughly how big the fonts will be to the
> nearest pixel, and user-agents can zoom in or out to their hearts'
> content.

You can't know how big my fonts will be.

> Try not to design with fixed height containers, unless you allow for
> expanding text. Setting blocks using line-heights in percent or ems
> allows for fonts to expand without overlapping.

Only IE doesn't permit visitors to expand their font size, when pixel or
point units are used. All modern browsers will gleefully make the text
larger, and blow it outside fixed-sized boxes.

> It's a big subject, and I won't attempt to cover it in any detail, but
> it's certainly possible, as long as you allow for expansion in your
> layout.
>
> (* old IE messes up medium, so you need tan hack to fix it)

Use 100%, and the hack is not necessary.

--
-bts
-Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck

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