Re: [CSS] font-size-adjust curiosity

On 04/03/12 6:04 PM, John Daggett wrote:

> No, fallback fonts are sized differently depending upon the ratio of 
> their x-height to em size, as specified in the description of the 
> font-size-adjust property. The size is determined by a combination of 
> 'font-size' and 'font-size-adjust'. The reason for keeping x-height 
> constant is less about being "visually more appealing" than it is 
> about readability at small sizes, where the x-height is a determining 
> factor.

Thinking about this, and about the other font-size-adjust thread, I'm 
struck that as currently spec'd it is a peculiarly Latin-centric -- or, 
at least, Euro-centric -- feature, which may be because it relies on 
similarly Latin-centric font metrics (the sxHeight field in the OS/2 table).

I can think of parallel situations in which, again for both aestheric 
and readability reasons, one might want to, say, adjust the size of 
fallback Hindi fonts to match the head line height of the preferred 
font, or match some aspect of differing Arabic fonts (the latter mighty 
be particularly welcome, given how widely divergent the scaling of 
Arabic fonts can be).

JH

Received on Wednesday, 7 March 2012 00:08:22 UTC