- From: Joel N. Weber II <devnull@gnu.ai.mit.edu>
- Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 23:28:51 -0400
- To: fahrner@pobox.com
- CC: www-style@w3.org
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 19:03:47 -0700 From: Todd Fahrner <fahrner@pobox.com> Typefaces and type sizes are now specified independently in CSS. More precisely, there is a mechanism to suggest alternate typefaces, but not to bind alternate type sizes and line-heights to the alternate typefaces. This is not especially useful, as typefaces have highly irregular metrics and suitability for screen display at a given size. It would be far better to specify typefaces, type sizes, and line-heights (and possibly also letterspacing) together, and let these cascade/degrade as groups. Consider this case: font: 9pt/15pt Verdana, "Gill Sans," sans-serif; This will result in a very legible Verdana (unless it's a Mac), a wretched, overleaded Gill Sans, or an imponderably rendered default sans. This would be much better: font: 9pt/15pt Verdana, 12pt/14pt "Gill Sans," 1em/1.2em sans-serif; I think you just destroyed the impact of your example with the comment ``unless it's a Mac''. I don't know the precise details of these fonts; but I would expect that even with your proposal, you're going to have problems if two systems have very different fonts with the same name. And I'm sure you're discussing style sheets on websites, rather than reader style sheets, because obviously in reader style sheets for your personal use, you're going to specify a font that you actually have.
Received on Saturday, 14 June 1997 23:28:57 UTC