Posted by PeterMcC on 09/04/05 18:38

Jonathan N. Little wrote in
<70ESe.368$wR4.30041@monger.newsread.com>

<snip>
>
> This may be semantics here, but 'em' from my fine arts background was
> defined as the width of the capital letter 'M' of a certain font for
> printing or hand for calligraphy. Therefore the em's actual size would
> vary whether the font was compress, normal, demi or extended font of
> the same point size. Printers would use 'em' and 'en' to describe the
> width of dashes or spaces to their respective 'M' and 'N' character
> widths for the font being used. Now how W3C has interpreted this for
> CSS I will have to research a bit...

I'm afraid that somebody misinformed you. The em and the letter M have only
a (very remote) historical relationship and that former relationship is of
little practical value nowadays.

http://css.nu/articles/typograph1-en.html


--
PeterMcC
If you feel that any of the above is incorrect,
inappropriate or offensive in any way,
please ignore it and accept my apologies.

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