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Relative OR absolute font size?

 
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All:
Which is better? Relative or absolute font sizes? I read in one of the articles that relative font size is better as you don't force a font size for the pages. This way, you have a "floating" font size and how it is displayed depends on the user's browser setting.
Does any one have any plus or minus points for this choice of font sizes?
Ref: http://www.wpdfd.com/advanced/ch3_3.htm
Thanks
Viji
 
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I like absolute, or better yet style sheets. But I like to have full control over the appearance of my pages, and if I am lining things up, if I give it relative, and some users have 22point bold font, then it will really screw up my designs. So I always specify the font size and type for a consistent look on all browsers.
Bill
 
Viji Bharat
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Bill:
Thanks for your response. Well, I have also been using absolute font sizes but the article link in my previous post seem to be in favor of relative font sizes.
I think the browser text size setting on the user's machine is the one that makes a page look good or bad. For eg. assume that on the development machine, the text size setting is medium and I use absolute font sizes for the text. If the user's browser text size setting is set to 'largest', it will not make the page look the way it appears on my development machine.
So, does this mean that you cannot have complete control on the font size settings?
Viji
 
bill bozeman
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If you want control of the text and how it appears you need to use absolute. Relative will be relative to their size, so if they have the largest font size, and you say the heading is supposed to be 3 times that size, you are going to get some REAL BIG headings.
But with absolute, you have control over it, so that is why I like that better. Unless it was something like a newpaper where content was more important than appearance, then I may let the user determine how they want to view it, but for most sites, design plays a big role, so I use absolute.
Bill
 
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I'd like to totally advocate stylesheets. With JAvaScript and Server-generated pages, you can make a page look SWEET in any browser on any platform.
 
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