Type sizs on Mac and PC

[The Devil's Advocate©]

Mac displays type slightly larger than a PC which tends to mess up
html tables and such. What is the common solution for this? I'd like
to get type to display at the same apparent size on both platforms.

Also- If you have a second and you know of some websites that have a
commercial and cutting-edge look mtv.com please post some. Thanks.

 

[Luna]

Mac displays type slightly larger than a PC which tends to mess up
html tables and such. What is the common solution for this? I'd like
to get type to display at the same apparent size on both platforms.

Also- If you have a second and you know of some websites that have a
commercial and cutting-edge look mtv.com please post some. Thanks.

You can use CSS to specify a pixel size for the font, that way it will be
the same on both macs and Pcs.

 

[Bernhard Sturm]

Mac displays type slightly larger than a PC which tends to mess up
html tables and such. What is the common solution for this? I'd like
to get type to display at the same apparent size on both platforms.

set your font-size in pixel, then you don't have to worry about
resolution. a pixel is 1 pixel on a monitor, is 1 pixel on a mac, on a
windoze machine, on linux, on mobile phones... ;-)

bernhard

 

[PeterMcC]

You can use CSS to specify a pixel size for the font, that way it
will be the same on both macs and Pcs.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should...

See what happens when you x-post to alt.design.graphics

 

[Chris Morris]

set your font-size in pixel, then you don't have to worry about
resolution. a pixel is 1 pixel on a monitor, is 1 pixel on a mac, on a
windoze machine, on linux, on mobile phones... ;-)

On a video projector displaying on a 6 foot screen at 3000x3000
resolution...

Just taking a quick straw poll of the machines in this office (14-17"
monitors, some flatscreen, some CRT, mostly at 800/600 or 1024/768
resolution) the size of a pixel varies by about 40%. With more exotic
displays this variance would probably rise considerably.

 

[SpaceGirl]

Just because you can doesn't mean you should...

See what happens when you x-post to alt.design.graphics

There are good design reasons for you locking font sizes, and usability
issues for not. Books, for example, are printed in a fixed type face - as
are the subtitles on movies, posters, the print on the back of CD cases and
so on. While it could be argued that you should not use fixed typefaces on
web pages (the visually impaired could have problems, or those running at
crazy high resolution), you should target for your market. While the vast
majority of people have 800x600 or 1024x768 displays, it make sense to
design layouts that work best on these displays (and size the type faces
appropriately).

CSS fixed font sizes is a solution where the designs cannot be as flexible.
Most commercial sites do this (MTV being a good example - they use a lot of
CSS).

Try www.coolhomepages.com for the latest in cutting edge designs... they
list some good ones.

xM

 

[SpaceGirl]

On a video projector displaying on a 6 foot screen at 3000x3000
resolution...

Just taking a quick straw poll of the machines in this office (14-17"
monitors, some flatscreen, some CRT, mostly at 800/600 or 1024/768
resolution) the size of a pixel varies by about 40%. With more exotic
displays this variance would probably rise considerably.

Out in the real world where something like 80% of people are using 800x600
displays, and the majority of the test are 1024x768. You cant design for
everything. So you design for the average.

In our studio we have one machine running 1120 x 960 (19" CRT), one 1280 x
1024 (21" flat panel) and one machine running 1024 x 768. We always design
sites for 800 x 600 (or 780 x 550).

 

[Chris Morris]

Out in the real world where something like 80% of people are using 800x600
displays, and the majority of the test are 1024x768. You cant design for
everything. So you design for the average.

You can design for everything, or at least a fairly wide range... See
elsewhere in this thread for that.

Anyway, my point was that *within* the common display settings (800 or
1024 on 14-17") there's already a _huge_ variation in size.

 

[Luna]

Just because you can doesn't mean you should...

See what happens when you x-post to alt.design.graphics

I've heard people refer to pixel sized fonts as "fixed" and, well, I'm not
an expert, but on my pages where the font size is specified in pixels, on
IE the "text zoom" function still works fine. So I'm not sure what the
problem is with defining size in pixels.

 

[Bernhard Sturm]

Anyway, my point was that *within* the common display settings (800 or
1024 on 14-17") there's already a _huge_ variation in size.

but your pixel would still be a pixel ;-)
which leads to the beauty of fixed font-sizes.

however, to open another can of worms: you could define your font-size
in 'em' as recommended by the W3C. I wouldn't, as you will then have to
create two CSS for Mac/Linux and PC. That's just the other way how to
solve the font-size problem.
I would stick with pixels as you have much better control over a fixed
font size.

BTW: if you really want to cover the high-res users, you could create
your two CSS files for low- and high-res browser profiles.

bernhard

 

[SpaceGirl]

but your pixel would still be a pixel ;-)
which leads to the beauty of fixed font-sizes.

however, to open another can of worms: you could define your font-size
in 'em' as recommended by the W3C. I wouldn't, as you will then have to
create two CSS for Mac/Linux and PC. That's just the other way how to
solve the font-size problem.
I would stick with pixels as you have much better control over a fixed
font size.

BTW: if you really want to cover the high-res users, you could create
your two CSS files for low- and high-res browser profiles.

bernhard

Yep... or more. CSS, being cascading and all, is easy to adapt to lots of
different things. One of our sites has one core CSS document; if an older
browser is detected it still loads the core CSS, but it also loads a second
document which contains just the styles that don't work so well on Netscape.
This second file takes presidents over the first. It'd be easy to add a
script that checked the browser max window size and used this to load an
alternate CSS document in (if it came to that), or you could (as some sites
already have) allow the user to choose one of several styles for the site
just by clicking a button. The content of the site never actually changes,
but the look and feel can be dramatically different. Got to love CSS

 

[Steve Pugh]

I've heard people refer to pixel sized fonts as "fixed" and, well, I'm not
an expert, but on my pages where the font size is specified in pixels, on
IE the "text zoom" function still works fine. So I'm not sure what the
problem is with defining size in pixels.

You use a Mac.

Windows IE is broken and text sized in pixels or points can not be
resized by the user. Only a user stylesheet or disabling all font
sizing in the preferences will allow users to over ride such font
sizes.

(Text sized in pixels is also not resizable in Netscape 4, but text
sized in points is.)

Pity that 80%+ of all web users are using such a broken browser.

Steve

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Quoth the raven named SpaceGirl:

While the vast majority of people have 800x600 or 1024x768
displays, it make sense to design layouts that work best on these
displays (and size the type faces appropriately).

Yikes. Here we go yet again. Forget about monitor *resolution*. What
makes you think everyone browses with /maximized/ windows? I'm looking
at my 1024 monitor with a browser window about 750 pixels wide.

http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?AnySizeDesign

 

[Bernhard Sturm]

SpaceGirl schrieb:

(if it came to that), or you could (as some sites
already have) allow the user to choose one of several styles for the site
just by clicking a button. The content of the site never actually changes,
but the look and feel can be dramatically different. Got to love CSS

he, he, he... seems that someone has already converted!

bernhard

 

[Luna]

You use a Mac.

Windows IE is broken and text sized in pixels or points can not be
resized by the user. Only a user stylesheet or disabling all font
sizing in the preferences will allow users to over ride such font
sizes.

(Text sized in pixels is also not resizable in Netscape 4, but text
sized in points is.)

Pity that 80%+ of all web users are using such a broken browser.

Steve

Ah, that's strange. Since most people have PC's as opposed to Macs, if
there's a problem with the way IE works I would have guessed it would be
the other way around. Like Microsoft's priority would be to make software
work well on PC's rather than Macs.

 

[SpaceGirl]

SpaceGirl schrieb:



he, he, he... seems that someone has already converted!

I was a long time ago. look at my sites... they use a LOT of css.

It's XHTML I'm learning now

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Quoth the raven named Luna:

Apparently so.

I've heard people refer to pixel sized fonts as "fixed" and, well,
I'm not an expert, but on my pages where the font size is specified
in pixels, on IE the "text zoom" function still works fine.

Not in my experience. Are you referencing the site at:
http://www.mindspring.com/~lunachick/

IE's View > Text Size does nothing.

So I'm
not sure what the problem is with defining size in pixels.

Probably ~85% of your visitors will use Internet Exploder. You've
handicapped them all, especially those with visual handicaps.

 

[SpaceGirl]

Quoth the raven named SpaceGirl:


Yikes. Here we go yet again. Forget about monitor *resolution*. What
makes you think everyone browses with /maximized/ windows? I'm looking
at my 1024 monitor with a browser window about 750 pixels wide.

http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?AnySizeDesign

Uh huh, I know. People also know how to make their browsers bigger if they
need to. That's not a big deal when the vast majority of (commercial)
existing web sites are also designed for 800 x 600 (meaning 750 x 500-ish
usuable pixels).

Soon as we get away from pixel based design the better. Windows 6 uses a
scaled desktop ("avalon"), with a device independant measurement system.
Office 2003 is an example of this... it can be scaled up and down just as if
you were zooming in and out of an image in PhotoShop. Unfortunatly we have
to wait a while yet for this to be usable.

 

[Luna]

Quoth the raven named Luna:


Apparently so.


Not in my experience. Are you referencing the site at:
http://www.mindspring.com/~lunachick/

IE's View > Text Size does nothing.


Probably ~85% of your visitors will use Internet Exploder. You've
handicapped them all, especially those with visual handicaps.

It's been explained that it works for me because I'm on a Mac. I've also
handicapped my users by using Flash on the main page, since not everyone
uses Flash, and by my color choices, since not everyone likes those colors,
and by using graphics, since some people use text-only browsers. Every
choice made in designing a site will alienate some users. If this makes me
an uncaring bitch, so be it, but it's more important to me to have my font
the size I want it than to make it usable for visually impaired people.
Nothing on there is important, it's a vanity site.

 

[Bernhard Sturm]

I was a long time ago. look at my sites... they use a LOT of css.

It's XHTML I'm learning now

you're a *!


bernhard