Re: font sizes in ems: a clarification

Gayle Kidder wrote:
> 1) MSIE appears to render an em the same size as a point. The glitch
I
> captured from David Perrell's demo, however, demonstrated that if you
> change font size using the View/Fonts menu, it only affects the first
> rendering (which was font-size: 1em) but does not scale the rest of
the
> page accordingly (i.e., font-size: 2em is relative to the original
font
> size but not the new resize).

On the demo I fixed to accommodate Netscape's 'missing </P>' bug

    http://www.hpaa.com/css1/emsnpercent1.html

the relative sizes change when I change the browser's default size.

> 2) NS4 does not render an em the same size as a point, nor does it
seem
> to use the reader default. This led to my assumption that it was
scaling
> the font larger for an em and therefore one needed a scale-down
factor
> to spec in ems. This latter you can see with NS4 on a new, cleaned up
> demo at:
> http://www.beachmedia.com/www/emdemo1.html

You have used a SPAN for the 1em text inside your classed P element.
Therefore, since em refers to the parent element, the 1em text will be
the same size as the parent paragraph: 10pt. What is happening here is
correct, except in the case of Verdana on NSN, where the 1em Verdana is
larger than the 10pt.

David Perrell

Received on Friday, 18 July 1997 16:27:57 UTC