Out-of-the-box Browser font settings

[dorayme]

Can you remember what was set for font *size* in your various
browsers when you first downloaded them or got them on your
original installs?

 

[Neil Gould]

Can you remember what was set for font *size* in your various
browsers when you first downloaded them or got them on your
original installs?

I don't recall any specific value for text size, but the general settings in
older browsers was "medium" for IE and is unspecified in, for example FF5,
but can be "zoomed" in either direction, so I presume it's equivalent to
"medium" as well.

 

[dorayme]

I don't recall any specific value for text size, but the general settings in
older browsers was "medium" for IE and is unspecified in, for example FF5,
but can be "zoomed" in either direction, so I presume it's equivalent to
"medium" as well.

You are right about WinIE, the specific pixel or point size can
be worked out but it is not transparently offered as a number as
in other browsers.

<http://dorayme.netweaver.com.au/differentEyesights/pics/textSize_
ie.png>

(from IE 8)

In FF, Safari, iCab, there are specific settings.

I know many of my own browsers are set to 16 for most reading
fonts but I forget if I set them or they came that way and they
suited me! The mozilla url on the page at the url below is a
small clue that maybe they come that way. I guess (just noticed
this).

Just got to wondering about it for a page I am cobbling to
together, a draft of which is at

<http://dorayme.netweaver.com.au/differentEyesights/textSpill.html

 

[Neil Gould]

You are right about WinIE, the specific pixel or point size can
be worked out but it is not transparently offered as a number as
in other browsers.

<http://dorayme.netweaver.com.au/differentEyesights/pics/textSize_
ie.png>

(from IE 8)

In FF, Safari, iCab, there are specific settings.

I know many of my own browsers are set to 16 for most reading
fonts but I forget if I set them or they came that way and they
suited me! The mozilla url on the page at the url below is a
small clue that maybe they come that way. I guess (just noticed
this).

My FF5s are set to 16, and because I didn't bother to change them I presume
they came that way. I wonder what that "16" would mean, anyway? Like an
amplifier that can be turned up to 11, I think it's a relative figure that
will not have an absolute physical size representation due to such things as
the size, pixel resolution and font rendering methods of the users' monitor
and video subsystem.

Just got to wondering about it for a page I am cobbling to
together, a draft of which is at

<http://dorayme.netweaver.com.au/differentEyesights/textSpill.html

Well, your page taps into one of my beefs with CSS-based styling. No matter
how well-crafted, only the simplest of page layouts can avoid being trashed
by user settings. Perhaps an idea from early web days may still be useful...
have a button that redirects users with special needs to another version of
the site.

 

[dorayme]

My FF5s are set to 16, and because I didn't bother to change them I presume
they came that way. I wonder what that "16" would mean, anyway? Like an
amplifier that can be turned up to 11, I think it's a relative figure that
will not have an absolute physical size representation due to such things as
the size, pixel resolution and font rendering methods of the users' monitor
and video subsystem.

I think it just means pixels. But maybe you are right and it
happens to be pixels without quite meaning it.

Well, your page taps into one of my beefs with CSS-based styling. No matter
how well-crafted, only the simplest of page layouts can avoid being trashed
by user settings.

Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by simplest.

Perhaps an idea from early web days may still be useful...
have a button that redirects users with special needs to another version of
the site.

Now and then, this is probably not too bad an idea but we should
aim not to need to do this. However, there is such a bad sticking
point in the practical web world about the size of body text that
I am wondering now if it is not actually a good idea to at least
give a a button for a couple of sizes, one for normal as in user
preferences and one for 20% less to shut people up - like bosses
and clients and stop them winging! <g>

 

[Neil Gould]

I think it just means pixels. But maybe you are right and it
happens to be pixels without quite meaning it.

Or, it's a number that has nothing to do with pixels or anything else; 16
pixels on a monitor with a vertical screen size of 15" and vertical
resolution of 1500 would render medium fonts 0.16" high. But, since I can
read it, I'm pretty sure that's not happening! ;-)

Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by simplest.

Full width, single-column, simple div parameters, etc.

Now and then, this is probably not too bad an idea but we should
aim not to need to do this.

Well, it's a down-side to the generalized markup approach that has plagued
presentation since SGML days, but at least then someone had to access a
common DTD to render a document. It might be one reason why people prefer
one browser over another, but IMO all browsers suck at rendering something
or other, and user settings can make things completely unreadable.

 

[Allodoxaphobia]

... - like bosses and clients and stop them winging! <g>

Do you have much of an issue with them flying about your head?

Ya, I sometimes do, too.

Jonesy

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

dorayme wrote:
Or, it's a number that has nothing to do with pixels or anything else; 16
pixels on a monitor with a vertical screen size of 15" and vertical
resolution of 1500 would render medium fonts 0.16" high. But, since I can
read it, I'm pretty sure that's not happening!;-)

It means pixels. You can confirm it by changing the value and then
checking the "computed style" with DOM Inspector

 

[Neil Gould]

Hi Johnathan,

It means pixels. You can confirm it by changing the value and then
checking the "computed style" with DOM Inspector

I'm not all that familiar with DOM inspector. Where is the "computed style"
option?

 

[Neil Gould]

Hi Johnathan,

Sorry about misspelling your name... I know too many people named "John",
and my fingers went into auto-type mode...

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

I'm not all that familiar with DOM inspector. Where is the "computed style"
option?

Picture worth a thousand words

http://www.littleworksstudio.com/temp/usenet/computedstyle.jpg

 

[Neil Gould]

Hi Jonathan,

Picture worth a thousand words

http://www.littleworksstudio.com/temp/usenet/computedstyle.jpg

Thanks for the pointer. Food for thought...

 

[dorayme]

....

Or, it's a number that has nothing to do with pixels or anything else;

It must have to do with something! What probably is confusing is
that if you look at this or that character, it is hard to see how
*16* comes into it (no matter that there are *reports* of it
being resolved to 16px (as Jonathan has said). What is 16px is,
very roughly, the box in which the character is designed, taking
into account that different characters (the black bits in black
coloured letters like a, A, AAcute, y and so on) are different in
height and they all need to line up neatly and so the measure of
the characters height is some standard box for them all, the
boxes being line-upable and stackable. This box, you will find,
is mostly 16px for browsers that give unitless 16 in their
pref/options.

There are some complications in demonstrating this but you can
get close if you attend to line-height (setting it - as against
defaults - to 1) and also, noting that not all letters in all
font families will quite stay in their character boxes, some of
them are a bit like those cartoon characters that burst out of
their frames (there was one I recall, I think it was Little No No
and Sniffy where some character wanted to see what was outside
its world).

16
pixels on a monitor with a vertical screen size of 15" and vertical
resolution of 1500 would render medium fonts 0.16" high. But, since I can
read it, I'm pretty sure that's not happening! ;-)

Full width, single-column, simple div parameters, etc.

My above draft is not exactly "Full width, single-column, simple
div parameters" but you are saying it is easily scrambled by user
settings? That's a worry for me!

 

[Neil Gould]

...

It must have to do with something! What probably is confusing is
that if you look at this or that character, it is hard to see how
*16* comes into it (no matter that there are *reports* of it
being resolved to 16px (as Jonathan has said).

My thought is that the numbers *may* have had something to do with pixels,
based on the original Mac / Mac + screen that was 72 ppi, which made 72 pt
type about 1" on-screen. But, that's a stretch, and even Apple dropped that
folly early-on.

What is 16px is,
very roughly, the box in which the character is designed, taking
into account that different characters (the black bits in black
coloured letters like a, A, AAcute, y and so on) are different in
height and they all need to line up neatly and so the measure of
the characters height is some standard box for them all, the
boxes being line-upable and stackable.

I agree with you that the pixel settings determine the height of the
character set, but perhaps it's the ex height rather than the absolute
height.

This box, you will find,
is mostly 16px for browsers that give unitless 16 in their
pref/options.

That may be... but I'm still skeptical about the pixel thing being absolute.
The browser will presumably send the same instructions in any installation,
but fonts are ultimately rendered by the video subsystem and monitor.

My above draft is not exactly "Full width, single-column, simple
div parameters" but you are saying it is easily scrambled by user
settings? That's a worry for me!

Well, your pages are better than most. ;-)

But, you don't need to get to the extremes in FF settings to see that your
presentational intent can be altered by those settings, and there are other
video settings available to the user beyond the browser that will complicate
things even further. My question is, how much should we worry about such
things?

 

[dorayme]

....
I agree with you that the pixel settings determine the height of the
character set, but perhaps it's the ex height rather than the absolute
height.

Not sure what absolute height means in this context except it
cannot mean inches or ruler measurements of course. When I said
that fonts are designed in boxes I was drawing attention to the
height and, given that fonts are scalable, their box heights can
be scaled to 16px and that this is what browsers are generally
doing.

That may be... but I'm still skeptical about the pixel thing being absolute.

I don't think anyone is saying that a pixel is an absolute
invariant, rulerwise from screen to screen. But once anyone uses
a monitor, at the settings it has, there are pixels, smallest
screen atoms, often identical with identifiable hardware
components or built by the hardware components by software into
bigger units, these units being the pixels. Whatever they are set
at, no matter how big or small, the idea of a 16px font-size is
the idea that the character box will be 16px high. Roughly this.
Absolute units do not much come into the matter.

The browser will presumably send the same instructions in any installation,
but fonts are ultimately rendered by the video subsystem and monitor.

Certainly, instructing a monitor to display a character box at
16px does not entail any particular inch size because it is
relative to the size of a pixel. Pixels can be any inch size at
all, depending on the hardware and display software.