Re: px vs. pt

Daniel Hiester wrote:
> 
> But then, do they worry about how big a 24pt font shows up on a TV newscast?
> How different is the web from that?

It's completely different. I'm sure that TV newscasters do worry about
the 24pt font being the same size as the image next to it, as they
intend and desire it to be.

That is the argument (at least for myself), is the size of the text
relative to the other items on the page. For example, a block of text is
supposed to fit next to an image such that the image and block of text
take up the same vertical space. On TV or print, you can define this. If
Viewer A has a TV twice the size as Viewer B, then both the text and
image will be twice the size on Viewer A's TV then on Viewer B's.

Not so with the web. If I set up a block of text and an image to have
the same vertical size on a PC, and then I look at it on a Mac, the text
will be 3/4 smaller then the image. 

Pixels come the closes to solving this problem. The size of images are
defined by pixels. So if I want my text to match the size of an image it
is next to, then I have to define my text in pixels. Pixels are the
measurement of size on monitors. Is that monitor set to 640 pixels by
480 pixels, or is it 800 pixels by 600 pixels?

The the problem still remains with users resizing the text (such as
IE5.5/Mac's "Text Zoom" feature). I'm all for usability so that people
with bad eyesight can enlarge the text so that they can read it. But
problems can occur when enlarging the text can break the layout because
of the graphical elements surrounding/depending on that text.

This brings up a completely other subject of whether to use px or pt for
specifing the size of text, but I think that it would be wise/helpful if
browser vendors would consider making the entire "page" (layout, images,
text, everything) zoomable. This would ensure that users with vision
problems who need to enlarge text to read it, to also be able to enlarge
small graphics and graphics which contain small text.


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Received on Tuesday, 1 August 2000 16:30:44 UTC