Re: Stipulating fonts or not to stipulate.

Hi Paul,

specifying fonts can annoy as many people as it pleases. For people who need
to specify fonts it  is important that they can change them, and therefore to
know how to do so if they don't like the fonts specified.

I don't think there is a reason to avoid specifying a (reasonably clear) font
type, although I find it very annoying to deal with pages that specify sizes
that I can't override (which means when I am using soeone else's browser -
say at the library or internet cafe).

I would suggest, following Harry's suggestion, that you do it with a style
sheet, making it easier to specify site-wide or user preferences that are
applied using decent browsers to do so, rather than using the element font
(which is deprecated in HTML 4.0). Although it doesn't create a major
accessibility problem without a good solution, it is good practise, which is
an important habit for accessibility.

just my tuppeny'orth

cheers

Charles

On Mon, 29 Oct 2001, David Poehlman wrote:

  As an artist I am sure you comply to the conventions of the medium you
  are working with.  An artist would not use the same techniques on a water
  color painting as they would with oils unless he had a specific reason to
  do so.

  The Web has its own set of techniques and conventions.  It was designed
  as a medium of communication which could be read in many forms to present
  information in a hyper linked environment.  A web page is not...or at
  least should not be a representation of a printed page pasted on the web.

  Fonts are fine. There is definitely a place for the use of fonts in web
  pages but that place is in a separate Style Sheet.  Web pages should
  separate content and presentation.

  Many people may wish to change the font or size. They are not too lazy to
  view a web site without additional software they are just doing what they
  should do if web Designers were not too lazy to learn and use correct
  techniques instead of using the techniques of other media.

  For some details on how fonts can affect readability see
  http://www.lighthouse.org/.

  Harry Woodrow

  -----Original Message-----
  Subject: Stipulating fonts or not to stipulate.


  Hi All,

  Confession time. I may be going over old ground here but please exercise
  some patience for a pooh bear.

[should people specify fonts...]

Received on Monday, 29 October 2001 14:58:17 UTC