Re: [csswg-drafts] Font optical size multiplication factor (#13331)

At least in the implementations I have tried, `font-optical-sizing: auto` simply sets `opsz` to the point size of the font automatically.

The typeface designer typically designs the optical sizes for print, not for the screen. Even on modern high-DPI displays, there sometimes needs to be some compensation for the coarseness of the medium. Look at the linked [Bodoni](https://indestructibletype.com/Bodoni.html) page, for example – for the body test, the designer of the font, to show it off, selected an optical size of 6 (using a font file with this setting rather than `opsz`, in this case) although the calculated font size (based on a default browser stylesheet) is 20.8px. Even for the headings `h2`, he selects optical size 24 with a calculated font size of 128px.

If the approach here could be browsers using some more intelligent strategy to pick a value of `opsz`, that would be great, but it would need to take account of the design of the font as well as the particular screen; it’s likely a problem about as hard as that which is solved by e.g. ttfautohint.

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Received on Monday, 12 January 2026 11:33:54 UTC