How do the pros lock font size?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chris D.
  • Start date Start date
C

Chris D.

Some web sites I visit do not allow font resizing using the View / Text Size
option in IE. How do they do that? I really like it.

Chris Dallimore
 
Personally I do not do this, since users visiting a web site change the font
size so that they are able to read the content, otherwise if they can't read
the content, they will just move on to another web site where they can read
the content.

If you still feel a need to chase users away from your website, then you
will need to learn/use CSS to fixed the font size.

--

==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, Forums, WebCircle,
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CSS can't fix font size - best it can do is over-ride the view - text size
menu in IE by specifying size in pixels, eg
p{font: 14px verdana}

There's two ways to go with CSS - use scalable sizes (%/em) but be aware
that NN4 will almost always makes a dogs dinner of it. Or define sizes in
pixels but present the user with an option to switch to a large type
stylesheet - advantage to doing this is you can also specify a high contrast
(black on white) colour scheme.
 
Jon,

That a play on words, because the average user visitor a web site where they
are not able to increase the font size, it has been locked/fixed.

Unless the user is using a browser that allows them to override the web font
specification, they are stuck with font size shown.

So the only way for a web developer to do this is to lock/fix the font size
use 'em' or 'px' via CSS.

--

==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, Forums, WebCircle,
MS KB Quick Links, etc.
==============================================
 
OK, fair comment. My point is that in modern browsers one can over-ride the
font size however it's defined. I'd assume the average user would have no
need to do so but that anyone with vision problems would have figured out
how to do this.

em is a scalable unit like % (as it sounds em is the width of a letter m) so
will respond to view - text size. Pixels of course will not
 
You can use px or pt in a style sheet. The failure of IE to scale is not a
feature as it reduces accessibility for people with poor eyesight or high
resolution monitors. All other modern browsers will scale.

Hopefully, this "feature" will be fixed if/when MS feels a need to release a
new version of IE.

Bob Lehmann
 
I'd be more inclined to suggest that a "pro" wouldn't dream of locking a
text size lest they lose a visitor to their site. If I can't read something
because it's too small or it screams at me because it's too large, and I
can't adjust the text size, CLICK! and I'm gone.
 
I didn't mean to suggest that it was OK. I think that my follow-up comments
should have made that clear.

Bob Lehmann
 
For the sake of style, I think it's acceptable to lock _some_ items. Page
titles, for instance, which tend to be larger than the page content.

But I must wholeheartedly agree that locking _all_ content font size is a
practice that defeats accessibility. And I don't just mean accessibility
for vision or motion impaired. How many times have you seen code samples
that are too small and can't be adjusted with the common Ctrl+mousewheel?
 
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