RE: Units, font sizing, and zoom suggestion for CSS 3

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Perrell [mailto:davidp@earthlink.net]
...
> Em is simply shorthand for "current font size". Its value is that you
don't
> need to know absolute font size in order to specify relative dimensions.

I strongly dislike the idea that "em" should mean different things in two
major modern digital typesetting contexts.  TeX, and its successor Omega,
are not going away as far as I can see.  "em" has in several, but not all,
typographic traditions *into modern time* meant "width of M", at least for
fonts suitable for running text.  That's what it means also in the very
widely used TeX system.  Let's stick to that.  (For most other scripts, a
suitable similar measure should not be too hard to find, I think.  Perhaps
Arabic/Mongolian are hard for this.)

As for the design and *internal* measurements , like the "design square
size" (or whatever you want to call it), of typefaces, there is no hope to
change those for all of the thousands of digital typeface designs in
existence, or even get a change through for all "future" designs.  Instead
the internal measurements must be kept internal, and not exposed for
external use.

		Kind regards
		/kent k