Re: When font-size and font size collide

According to CSS2, 6.4.4 (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/cascade.html#q12),
"non-CSS presentation hints [e.g., formatting specified by <font> elements]
must be translated [by the user agent] to the corresponding CSS rules with
specificity equal to zero. The rules are assumed to be at the start of the
author style sheet and may be overridden by subsequent style sheet rules
[since later rules have precedence over earlier rules, everything else being
equal]...." CSS1 gave non-CSS hints specificity 1, since CSS1 had no
universal selector (also specificity 0).  The total effect is the same in
either version off CSS, though.

(What is specificity? Each CSS rule has a certain specificity that
determines its precedence in the user agent's decision of how to format an
element.  A higher specificity indicates higher precedence.)

Rather than mixing <font>-like formatting with CSS, I would advise thinking
about why you want a paragraph bigger.  Do you want all text to be bigger?
In that case, use a rule like "P { font-size: bigger }" or "* { font-size:
bigger }".  Is a certain paragraph a special announcement (for example)?  In
that case use a rule like ".announcement { font-size: bigger }" while using
the HTML code <p class="announcement">.

I believe CSS is less productive when an author tries formatting individual
elements, but more productive when an author tries formatting whole groups
of elements at once, based on the purpose of those elements.  For this
reason, I almost never use inline "style" attributes, and rarely even use
"id" attributes to mark individual elements for <style> CSS.

Benjamin Schak
benjamin@schak.com
http://www.schak.com/

Received on Wednesday, 18 August 1999 10:17:33 UTC