Re: Units, font sizing, and zoom suggestion for CSS 3

Karlsson Kent - keka wrote:

> This is the proper, and traditional, definition of em.  If you for
> compatibility reasons want to call it wem instead, fine. But then
> one should strongly deprecate the old CSS em.

Forsooth, and let us not stop there. Does not "Foot" traditionally refer to
the horizontal distance between the tip of the toes and the back of the heel
of our current leader?

Thankfully, the tradition of Em as the width of a cap m was long gone before
I started spec'ing type in 1973.

As for TeX being the guide to propriety, this from an on-line TeX
reference*:
"Several TeX command use dimensions as their parameters to specify sizes for
different items. There are a number of units that can be used for those
dimensions: ...
   em - horizontal size of the point size of the font ..."

The paring of the point measure is another thing. All my measuring tools
have the 'old' value. I suspect that Mac "1pt per pixel is JUST RIGHT for
everyone" folks are responsible but I have no proof.

David Perrell

*<http://www.math.umn.edu/%7Emarisa/tex/tex_1a_concepts/node17.html>

Received on Thursday, 20 January 2000 23:28:41 UTC