Re: Font-style vs. phrase elements

On 5/20/96 at 8:44 AM , Warren Steel wrote:

>   I have no idea, nor do I care.  Nobody has yet explained to me
>why this tag is necessary or desirable.
>Any distinctions it is intended to carry are lost on systems
>that do *not* recognize it;

True, but the same can be said of <BIG>, <SMALL>, <SUB>, <SUPER>,
<INS>, <DEL>, and <STRIKE> (or is it <S> ?)  *Especially* the last
three, which are intended for use in revision-history or legal
documents.

In fact, a far
as I can see, there is no real difference between <BIG> and
<FONT SIZE="+1">, or between <SMALL> and <FONT SIZE="-1"> .

>there
>are many situations, unforeseen to authors, in which text can become
>irrecoverably illegible or even invisible to a broad range of users.

I'd like to hear more about this.

>If frequently defeats all attempts at seaching and indexing based
>on hierarchical headings.

A properly designed search or index tool should skip over <FONT> tags
just as it now skips over <B> or <EM> tags.

--
Ron Newman             rnewman@cybercom.net
Web: http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/home.html

Received on Monday, 20 May 1996 12:52:08 UTC