Re: Hey Microsoft! cool it with CSS points ok?

Todd Fahrner wrote at 24/11/97 5:36 pm

>On Macs without anti-aliasing, pretty much all normal (u&l-case roman) type
>is illegible below 9pt, because on Macs, 1 point is 1 pixel (type is
>rasterized to a nominal 72dpi, regardless of actual physical pixel
>density). Why do you need at least 9 points/pixels? Count the vertical
>"pixels" necessary to represent the essential features of these
>"minimalist" ascii letters (Eg):

I'd agree with Todd's general point, please don't use (type) markup that 
is size specific, so often you're left trying to read type that is just 
too small, whether that's because of the minimal amount of pixels, or the 
type really is tiny.

Windows and Mac users suffer pretty much equally in this area. Everyone 
seems so glued into this idea that everyone is running either 72 or 96dpi 
monitors, it just isn't so. I've seen plenty of people running 15' Mac 
and PC monitors at 1024*768, that's getting on for 120dpi.

>
>1
>2
>3	####
>4	#
>5	###   ###
>6	#    #  #
>7	####  ###
>8	        #
>9	      ##



The size is about right here (9ppm minimum) though the allocation is 
slightly wrong. Consider what happens to a lowercase "e" in your example? 
Doesn't work, you need at least 5 pixels in the x-height.

This is more likely:


1    #####
2    #
3    #       ####   ###
4    ###    #   #  #   #
5    #      #   #  #####
6    #      #  ##  #
7    #####   ## #   ####
8               #
9           ####


But what about the accents! It may look strange, but:

1    #####   # #
2    #
3    #      #####
4    ###    #    
5    #      ###
6    #      #
7    #####  #####
8
9


Or possibly you'd cheat on the descender:

1            # #
2    #####
3    #      #####
4    #      #       ####   ###
5    ###    ###    #   #  #   #
6    #      #      #   #  #####
7    #      #       ####  #
8    #####  #####      #   ####
9                  ####


Which again looks really strange at this kind of size, but is really just 
an exaggeration of the compensation (raising the bowl of the "g") that 
takes place in outlines for many typefaces.

There are a few other possibilities to work at this, or even lower pixel 
grids, but I'm sure you get the idea. :-)


-- Clive

Received on Monday, 24 November 1997 15:37:56 UTC