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Re: Font size - user control

for

From: Hall, Kevin (K.M.)
Date: Sep 17, 2004 11:00AM


Yes, that's exactly what that priority is talking about. In IE if you size your font with pixels users will not be able to resize it using the browser controls. If you use relative units like % or ems they will. In other browsers such as Safari or Firefox users can resize text regardless of what units you use.
Hope that helps,
-Kevin Hall


-----Original Message-----
From: wmullin [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Friday, September 17, 2004 12:37 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] Font size - user control


Hi -

I've always assumed that, for accessibility when developing Web pages,
you should let the user be able to override your font size with browser
controls, such as using IE's View | Text Size controls, or using the
browsers accessibility features.

However, as I am preparing a presentation on accessibility for some of
my coworkers, I cannot find a 508 or W3C/WAI standard/guideline that
states that one should not override the users ability to control font
size.

The closest I could find is the W3C/WAI's: Priority 2: 3.4 Use relative
rather than absolute units in markup language attribute values and style
sheet property values.

* Will using relative rather than absolute units always allow the user
to manipulate font size?
* Are there any other applicable checkpoints/standards I'm
overlooking?

Thanks.

Wendy

Wendy R. Mullin
University of South Carolina, Web Developer
1244 Blossom Street, Columbia, South Carolina 29208
voice: 803-777-6785 | fax: 803-777-4149

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