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Thread: CSS Units of Measurement
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From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Wed, Feb 18 2004 5:07PM
Subject: CSS Units of Measurement
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Hi,
What is your opinions on the differences between and proper useages of
measurements like em's, pixels, and percentages?
Thanks!
Tim
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<P><FONT SIZE=3D2 FACE=3D"Arial">Hi,</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=3D2 FACE=3D"Arial">What is your opinions on the differences between and proper useages of measurements like em's, pixels, and percentages?</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=3D2 FACE=3D"Arial">Thanks!</FONT>
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From: Tim Beadle
Date: Thu, Feb 19 2004 1:31AM
Subject: Re: CSS Units of Measurement
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On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 04:03:25PM -0600, Tim Harshbarger wrote:
> What is your opinions on the differences between and proper useages of
> measurements like em's, pixels, and percentages?
I may be shot down in flames, but I've found one (rather good) approach to be:
* Set sizes in pixels in a basic (i.e. NN4 only) stylesheet
* Set (override) these sizes with keyword sizes in an advanced (@import)
stylesheet, using the Tantek Box Model Hack to give IE the sizes it wants,
as it uses sizes one-keyword out (smaller IIRC) from Mozilla.
Beware the Rendering Mode! Different font sizes will be displayed depending
on the Doctype you have set; i.e. Quirks Mode will look different to Standards
Compliant Mode.
HTH,
Tim
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From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Thu, Feb 19 2004 2:13AM
Subject: Re: CSS Units of Measurement
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On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Tim Beadle wrote:
> I may be shot down in flames,
You have your asbestos suit ready? Fine. Here we go...
> * Set sizes in pixels in a basic (i.e. NN4 only) stylesheet
Exercise in futility, since anyone who still surfs using NN4 is either
interested in content only, not visual appearance, or doesn't know what he
is doing and inevitably experiences lots of problems. In the first case he
has probably disabled JavaScript, thereby disabling the quasi-CSS support
too. If not, should we really punish him by enforcing our guesses on the
suitable font size upon him?
Besides, you never know when your "NN 4 only" stylesheet suddenly
affects rendering on other browsers.
> * Set (override) these sizes with keyword sizes in an advanced (@import)
> stylesheet, using the Tantek Box Model Hack to give IE the sizes it wants,
> as it uses sizes one-keyword out (smaller IIRC) from Mozilla.
Keyword sizes are inconsistently and vaguely defined and even wrongly
implemented on some still relevant browsers. Why would you use them then?
If you are happy with making something smaller or larger with just a vague
idea of what that might mean, use <small> and <big> in HTML. Beware though
that they should be used with caution and understanding, since their
effect will not disappear when the IE user tells the browser to ignore
font sizes set on Web pages. IE treats them as if they were really logical
rather than physical markup, which is, pragmatically, not as bad an idea
as it might sound on first sight.
If you wish to make specific suggestions on relative font sizing, use
font-size with percentage value, and avoid getting below 75% or above
150%. Watch out for the effects of nested elements with such settings.
You could even combine the two, using <small> in HTML and e.g.
small { font-size: 85%; }
in CSS.
> Beware the Rendering Mode! Different font sizes will be displayed depending
> on the Doctype you have set; i.e. Quirks Mode will look different to Standards
> Compliant Mode.
On IE 6, yes. (Thanks for pointing this out. I had forgotten this when I
recently wrote down a list of what the intentionally broken mode,
known as "quirks" mode, actually does.)
On IE 5 (on Windows), the user always gets the equivalent of "Quirks"
mode, i.e. all so-called absolute keywords as font-size values are horrendously
wrongly interpreted.
--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
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From: Tim Beadle
Date: Thu, Feb 19 2004 2:40AM
Subject: Re: CSS Units of Measurement
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On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 11:05:59AM +0200, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> Exercise in futility, since anyone who still surfs using NN4 is either
> interested in content only, not visual appearance, or doesn't know what he
> is doing and inevitably experiences lots of problems. In the first case he
> has probably disabled JavaScript, thereby disabling the quasi-CSS support
> too. If not, should we really punish him by enforcing our guesses on the
> suitable font size upon him?
Until late last year, our entire company used NN4 (thankfully now replaced with
NN7). They were interested in more than just content. I think you have made a
dangerous and sweeping generalisation there.
> Besides, you never know when your "NN 4 only" stylesheet suddenly
> affects rendering on other browsers.
Fair point. You would need to make sure that you override every declaration in
the advanced style sheet, and test, test, test.
> Keyword sizes are inconsistently and vaguely defined and even wrongly
> implemented on some still relevant browsers. Why would you use them then?
If you use the Tantek hack with the right DocType, you can get acceptable size
consistency across modern browsers.
I don't mean "smaller", "larger" etc; I mean xx-small through xx-large. Apart
from IE's incorrect rendering (fixable with Tantek's hack) they have a
well-defined meaning in modern browsers, as browser makers have standardised on
96dpi screen resolution and 16px default font size. Have you actually used
this method? I have, and have been happy, as have clients, with the result in
IE5+. NN6+, Safari, IE5 Mac, Mozilla/Camino/Firefox etc.
> If you are happy with making something smaller or larger with just a vague
> idea of what that might mean, use <small> and <big> in HTML. Beware though
> that they should be used with caution and understanding, since their
> effect will not disappear when the IE user tells the browser to ignore
> font sizes set on Web pages. IE treats them as if they were really logical
> rather than physical markup, which is, pragmatically, not as bad an idea
> as it might sound on first sight.
Isn't that presentational markup, rather than structural? What does "big" or
"small" mean to a screen reader?
> If you wish to make specific suggestions on relative font sizing, use
> font-size with percentage value, and avoid getting below 75% or above
> 150%. Watch out for the effects of nested elements with such settings.
I thought only NN4 did this nesting effect, which I've taken out of the
equation by using px in an NN4-only style sheet!
> On IE 6, yes. (Thanks for pointing this out. I had forgotten this when I
> recently wrote down a list of what the intentionally broken mode,
> known as "quirks" mode, actually does.)
No problem.
> On IE 5 (on Windows), the user always gets the equivalent of "Quirks"
> mode, i.e. all so-called absolute keywords as font-size values are
> horrendously wrongly interpreted.
It's a dog, isn't it? The sooner the world starts using Firefox, the better ;)
Regards,
Tim
--
"I don't need a blogging tool or an aggregator or designer or ashtray or
car stereo built into my web browser. I just need it to display web pages
properly." -- Kevin Daly
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From: Ben Morrison
Date: Thu, Feb 19 2004 3:12AM
Subject: Re: CSS Units of Measurement
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On 18/2/04 10:03 pm, "Tim Harshbarger" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:
> What is your opinions on the differences between and proper useages of
> measurements like em's, pixels, and percentages?
Has anyone used this before:
http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/typography/index.html
We are about to implement it on our website and was interested to see wether
it is the best route to take.
We are currently using px - don
From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Thu, Feb 19 2004 3:17AM
Subject: Re: CSS Units of Measurement
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On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Tim Beadle wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 11:05:59AM +0200, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> > Exercise in futility, since anyone who still surfs using NN4 is either
> > interested in content only, not visual appearance, or doesn't know what he
> > is doing and inevitably experiences lots of problems. In the first case he
> > has probably disabled JavaScript, thereby disabling the quasi-CSS support
> > too. If not, should we really punish him by enforcing our guesses on the
> > suitable font size upon him?
>
> Until late last year, our entire company used NN4 (thankfully now replaced with
> NN7). They were interested in more than just content. I think you have made a
> dangerous and sweeping generalisation there.
No, it just falls into the second category I mentioned (though,
admittedly, some of the _users_ might know what is being done to them,
and suffer). No matter what your company does to its own pages, on NN 4
the vast majority of modern Web pages simply don't work at all as
designed, regarding visual appearance.
> > Besides, you never know when your "NN 4 only" stylesheet suddenly
> > affects rendering on other browsers.
>
> Fair point. You would need to make sure that you override every declaration in
> the advanced style sheet, and test, test, test.
Including testing on all browsers that you have no access to, perhaps
because they don't exist yet.
> I don't mean "smaller", "larger" etc; I mean xx-small through xx-large.
So did I.
> Apart
> from IE's incorrect rendering (fixable with Tantek's hack) they have a
> well-defined meaning in modern browsers,
Why would you hack, instead of solving problems, or not creating them in
the first place.
The keyword sizes do _not_ have well-defined meanings. They are defined
as an ordinal scale only, with varying recommendations (and no actual
_definition_) of how they could be mapped to physical sizes. And the only
thing that is reasonably well defined, namely that medium should map to
the user-chosen size, is seriously violated by IE (except on IE 6 if you
use the magic spell to please the Great Doctype Sniffer).
> Isn't that presentational markup, rather than structural?
Yes, it is honest markup that tells that I wish to affect the font size,
relatively. It is not pseudo-structural like <span class="small">.
> What does "big" or "small" mean to a screen reader?
The same as font-size (or maybe potentially a little more, but that's
irrelevant).
> > If you wish to make specific suggestions on relative font sizing, use
> > font-size with percentage value, and avoid getting below 75% or above
> > 150%. Watch out for the effects of nested elements with such settings.
>
> I thought only NN4 did this nesting effect, which I've taken out of the
> equation by using px in an NN4-only style sheet!
No, of course not. If you set font-size in percentage, it by definition
means percentage of the parent element's font size. And browsers mostly
get this right. But authors may not always realize what they are asking
for.
--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
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From: Tim Beadle
Date: Thu, Feb 19 2004 3:54AM
Subject: Re: CSS Units of Measurement
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On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 12:09:46PM +0200, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> Including testing on all browsers that you have no access to, perhaps
> because they don't exist yet.
So if a new browser comes out that doesn't render it properly, we change the
CSS. After all, it's just one file for an entire site.
> Why would you hack, instead of solving problems, or not creating them in
> the first place.
OK - it's called a hack, but it's just using a parsing error in a broken
browser to solve *real world problems*. As I said before, have you used this
method? If so, are your clients happy with it? Mine are because, done correctly,
they shouldn't notice anything - the site looks 'right' in their browser (unless
they use NN4). Academic theory is all very well, but in the real world, we have
problems that need solving. Tantek's hack helps us write valid, standards-
compliant sites that are so much lighter in page weight terms than the table-
based equivalent, and accessible too.
> The keyword sizes do _not_ have well-defined meanings. They are defined
> as an ordinal scale only, with varying recommendations (and no actual
> _definition_) of how they could be mapped to physical sizes. And the only
> thing that is reasonably well defined, namely that medium should map to
> the user-chosen size, is seriously violated by IE (except on IE 6 if you
> use the magic spell to please the Great Doctype Sniffer).
So use the Magic Spell. No-one is stopping you. You don't really want to be in
Quirks Mode, anyway!
> > I thought only NN4 did this nesting effect, which I've taken out of the
> > equation by using px in an NN4-only style sheet!
>
> No, of course not. If you set font-size in percentage, it by definition
> means percentage of the parent element's font size. And browsers mostly
> get this right. But authors may not always realize what they are asking
> for.
Fair enough. As Owen Briggs points out (someone else pointed to The Noodle
Incident), if you set a percentage size on the body element, you can then
use ems in a safer way. That's now his preferred method:
"Anyhow, I played about and found you can make a nice ems stylesheet with P
text at 1.0 em, and then downsize the whole thing by selecting size in BODY
with %, like 76%. It's simple, easy to change, and works for everything. Score
1 for late nights and coffee. Enjoy."
http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/typography/index.html
A lot of this stuff is about compromise. We have much better browser support
than we did three or four years ago. Sometimes a little nudge ("hack") is
required to make IE behave. I see no problem in that.
Regards,
Tim
--
"I can't use tables anymore; it feels dirty." -- tlack
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From: Ben Morrison
Date: Thu, Feb 19 2004 4:21AM
Subject: Re: CSS Units of Measurement
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On 18/2/04 10:03 pm, "Tim Harshbarger" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:
> What is your opinions on the differences between and proper useages of
> measurements like em's, pixels, and percentages?
Sorry, went off on a font tangent there.
Easy to forget that the whole site can be bult using ems % etc.
A good post concerning liquid layouts/fixed layouts and the ability to zoom
I came across a while back maybe of help to you:
http://simon.incutio.com/archive/2003/11/09/fullPageZoom
ben
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From: Tim Beadle
Date: Thu, Feb 19 2004 4:26AM
Subject: Re: CSS Units of Measurement
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On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 11:13:00AM +0000, Ben Morrison wrote:
> Easy to forget that the whole site can be bult using ems % etc.
>
> A good post concerning liquid layouts/fixed layouts and the ability to zoom
> I came across a while back maybe of help to you:
>
> http://simon.incutio.com/archive/2003/11/09/fullPageZoom
And http://alistapart.com/articles/elastic/
Tim
--
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haystack" - iamnotandrei
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From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Thu, Feb 19 2004 4:27AM
Subject: Re: CSS Units of Measurement
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On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Tim Beadle wrote:
> OK - it's called a hack, but it's just using a parsing error in a broken
> browser to solve *real world problems*.
You mean the problems you wanted to create? I'm not sure of what problems
you are referring to now, but the problem with IE's wrong interpretation
of font-size keywords is easily _avoided_ by not using them in the first
place.
> Tantek's hack helps us write valid, standards-
> compliant sites that are so much lighter in page weight terms than the table-
> based equivalent, and accessible too.
Let's see what Google says when I ask
"Tantek's hack"
The first hit is described by Google as follows:
Box Model Hack
Please upgrade to a browser that supports web standards. Box Model
Hack. Boxtest. Here is a sample div with class "boxtest". It has ...
tantek.com/CSS/Examples/boxmodelhack.html
I think this speaks for itself. The very page that promotes the hack is
clearly optimized for arguing with visitors about their choice of
browser. OK, that was not quite fair, but neither were your comments.
--
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From: Tim Beadle
Date: Thu, Feb 19 2004 4:36AM
Subject: Re: CSS Units of Measurement
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On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 01:19:16PM +0200, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> > OK - it's called a hack, but it's just using a parsing error in a broken
> > browser to solve *real world problems*.
>
> You mean the problems you wanted to create? I'm not sure of what problems
> you are referring to now, but the problem with IE's wrong interpretation
> of font-size keywords is easily _avoided_ by not using them in the first
> place.
I mean that using keywords is *one* approach to accessible, resizable font
sizing. It's a chosen approach, not a "problem I wanted to create". At the time,
Owen Briggs hadn't posted his ems/percentage solution, so I saw it *in my view*
as the best option for accessible font sizing.
> > Tantek's hack helps us write valid, standards-
> > compliant sites that are so much lighter in page weight terms than the table-
> > based equivalent, and accessible too.
>
> Let's see what Google says when I ask
> "Tantek's hack"
> The first hit is described by Google as follows:
>
> Box Model Hack
> Please upgrade to a browser that supports web standards. Box Model
> Hack. Boxtest. Here is a sample div with class "boxtest". It has ...
> tantek.com/CSS/Examples/boxmodelhack.html
Which browser are you using? That technique, and the browser upgrade campaign,
is positively discouraged now.
"Note to site builders: The WaSP Browser Upgrade Campaign has come to a close.
As such we ask that you discontinue your use of this upgrade message and visit
the Beyond the Browser Upgrade Campaign page to learn about what to do instead."
- http://www.webstandards.org/upgrade/
> I think this speaks for itself. The very page that promotes the hack is
> clearly optimized for arguing with visitors about their choice of
> browser. OK, that was not quite fair, but neither were your comments.
What? You're going off the deep end a bit, aren't you? I presented a solution
to font sizing that *works for me* and is accessible (which is what this list
is about, after all) and you call that "unfair"? Hmmm.
How much real world web development have you actually done?
Tim
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From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Thu, Feb 19 2004 4:45AM
Subject: Re: CSS Units of Measurement
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On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Tim Beadle wrote:
> > Let's see what Google says when I ask
> > "Tantek's hack"
> > The first hit is described by Google as follows:
> >
> > Box Model Hack
> > Please upgrade to a browser that supports web standards. Box Model
> > Hack. Boxtest. Here is a sample div with class "boxtest". It has ...
> > tantek.com/CSS/Examples/boxmodelhack.html
>
> Which browser are you using?
I get the same information on any browser. Don't you? I don't think
Google does much browser sniffing.
> That technique, and the browser upgrade campaign,
> is positively discouraged now.
I don't know what technique you are referring to, but Tantek's page has
apparently been modified this month. It's also almost illegibly small font
on my current choice of browser (chosen, for better or worse, by hundreds
of millions of people), unless I take special measures to override all
font size suggestions by the author. Does _this_ ring a bell?
--
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From: Tim Beadle
Date: Thu, Feb 19 2004 4:59AM
Subject: Re: CSS Units of Measurement
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On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 01:37:20PM +0200, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> I get the same information on any browser. Don't you? I don't think
> Google does much browser sniffing.
Sorry - I thought you had visited the page at that point.
> > That technique, and the browser upgrade campaign,
> > is positively discouraged now.
>
> I don't know what technique you are referring to,
The "upgrade your browser" message set to display: none in "good" browsers.
The WaSP (as I linked to earlier) now discourage this behaviour.
> It's also almost illegibly small font
> on my current choice of browser (chosen, for better or worse, by hundreds
> of millions of people), unless I take special measures to override all
> font size suggestions by the author. Does _this_ ring a bell?
So you're using IE, a browser I was trying to accommodate with resizable text
in the font sizing method I proposed! The small font at tantek.com is because
Tantek, for better or worse, sets his font size in points. It's irrelevant, and
a completely separate issue from the hack that bears his name, so please don't
confuse the issue.
Tantek Celik helped program the "Tasman" rendering engine in IE5/Mac, at the
time (2000) the most standards-compliant browser available, so he knows what
he's doing, normally.
Regards,
Tim
--
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car stereo built into my web browser. I just need it to display web pages
properly." -- Kevin Daly
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From: Jon Gunderson
Date: Thu, Feb 19 2004 6:45AM
Subject: Re: CSS Units of Measurement
← Previous message | Next message →
Using em, ex and percentages is better where ever possible, since the
units scale better when the window or font size is changed.
Jon
On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Tim Harshbarger wrote:
> Hi,
>
> What is your opinions on the differences between and proper useages of
> measurements like em's, pixels, and percentages?
>
> Thanks!
> Tim
>
>
>
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From: julian.rickards@ndm.gov.on.ca
Date: Thu, Feb 19 2004 6:51AM
Subject: RE: CSS Units of Measurement
← Previous message | Next message →
I understand why one shouldn't go below 75% but why not above 150%? For
example, by default, <p> text is about the same size as <h4> and <h1> is
about 2x (or 200%) of <p>. If I decide to make the range a little wider such
as from 90% <p> to 250% for <h1> are you saying that I can't use 250%?
---------------------------------------------------------
Julian Rickards
Digital Publications Distribution Coordinator
Publications Services Section
Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines
Phone: (705) 670-5608
Fax: (705) 670-5690
> -----Original Message-----
> If you wish to make specific suggestions on relative font sizing, use
> font-size with percentage value, and avoid getting below 75% or above
> 150%. Watch out for the effects of nested elements with such settings.
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From: Cheryl D. Wise
Date: Thu, Feb 19 2004 8:47AM
Subject: RE: CSS Units of Measurement
← Previous message | Next message →
My only problem is not with the approach taken but with the 76% of the
user's font size. I really wish people wouldn't take it into their heads to
mess with my font size. It is set the way it is for a reason. I think that
is why most people have the setting they choose.
Of course I disagree with the commonly held perception that the default
sizes are too large. With monitors going to ever higher resolutions on the
same physical size monitor decreasing the font size by a quarter makes many
pages completely unreadable even for those people with more or less "normal"
vision. Having had one of the 15" 1400x1050 LCDs and 20/25 vision I found
myself needing to increase text sizes far more than I should. Then again in
most cases I simply went to the next site Google found instead.
Cheryl D. Wise
Certified Professional Web Developer
MS-MVP-FrontPage
www.wiserways.com
mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
713.353.0139 Office
-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Beadle
Fair enough. As Owen Briggs points out (someone else pointed to The Noodle
Incident), if you set a percentage size on the body element, you can then
use ems in a safer way. That's now his preferred method:
"Anyhow, I played about and found you can make a nice ems stylesheet with P
text at 1.0 em, and then downsize the whole thing by selecting size in BODY
with %, like 76%. It's simple, easy to change, and works for everything.
Score
1 for late nights and coffee. Enjoy."
http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/typography/index.html
A lot of this stuff is about compromise. We have much better browser support
than we did three or four years ago. Sometimes a little nudge ("hack") is
required to make IE behave. I see no problem in that.
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From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Thu, Feb 19 2004 2:53PM
Subject: RE: CSS Units of Measurement
← Previous message | No next message
On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = wrote:
> I understand why one shouldn't go below 75% but why not above 150%?
Because it eats up space and creates a risk of confusing normal big text
with headings.
> For example, by default, <p> text is about the same size as <h4> and <h1> is
> about 2x (or 200%) of <p>.
Unfortunately browsers use by default very large h1 size. My point is that
if you say something about font size, you should go into a more reasonable
direction - and avoid the risk of having your big text taken as a main
heading.
> If I decide to make the range a little wider such
> as from 90% <p> to 250% for <h1> are you saying that I can't use 250%?
Oh, I was referring to the use of increased font size for normal text,
rather than for headings.
But even for headings, I think 250% is way overboard, and even 200% is
quite a lot. The default bolding of headings makes the text look even
bigger.
It's not a big issue, in accessibility or otherwise, but too big text
creates problems, both on small devices where you need small text and
cannot afford great increases, and on normal screens when used by people
who need big font for copy text. If someone needs, say, 20pt for copy
text, then a 50pt heading will waste space.
--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
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