With neither quill nor qualm, Alan J. Flavell quothed:
There are people (of which I'm one) who advise against including it in
author stylesheets for body text, for reasons which are clearly stated
(sbpoley's page on the topic states them well, IMHO). If you disagree
with them, you're entirely free to explain why. Murmuring about
"obscure reasons" doesn't seem very honest to me.
Poley's main argument is that Verdana is slightly larger than the
average font at the same size-setting. So big deal. Maybe the author
wants his/her font to be slightly larger for improved readability,
which, indeed, the font provides.
Poley implies that authors are apt to specify a smaller css font-size
setting to compensate for Verdana's largesse over, say, Arial. Gee
whiz, if that's the only _mistake_ an author makes, he's doing quite
well on the whole. Anything can be abused by improper usage.
In addition, Poley states that the only common font he knows of which
doesn't have digits of the same width is "Georgia" (-in refuting a
reason to use Verdana.) While this may be true, the visible part of a
thin digit does not always align well with that of a thicker digit and
Verdana's greater girth helps alleviate this discrepancy.
I'm sure Verdana is a fine font for some purposes: feel entirely free
to set it as your browser default if you wish, or even to force it via
your user stylesheet instead of what the author is proposing.
I'm not suggesting either of those options. I'm just saying that
Verdana seems a good font to me for some purposes. I like to use it for
logos and some headings.
The
advice, however, remains: not to propose it for body text in an author
stylesheet.
In general, probably not. However, I wouldn't hesitate to use it if the
document were overwhelmingly textual material, such as a story or manual
calculated to test one's tedium.
Same.
