Problem with default fonts setting and CSS...

[Thomas]

I was wishing to see an html file with had the following
lines inside:

<STYLE TYPE="text/css"><!--
BODY { font-family: serif }
H1 { font-family: sans-serif }
H2 { font-family: sans-serif }
H3 { font-family: sans-serif }
H4 { font-family: sans-serif }
H5 { font-family: sans-serif }
H6 { font-family: sans-serif }
SUB { font-size: smaller }
SUP { font-size: smaller }
PRE { font-family: monospace }
A { text-decoration: none }
--></STYLE>

Until there, I know what it is supposed to do. My problem
is, on my box (NT4, IE6SP1), this line: BODY { font-
family: serif }, instead of rendering the text in the
default serif font, makes IE using a strange font
(TrueType Map Symbols) which makes the text look like
little square and signs (as if the default serif font of
IE has become the Map Symbols font).

If I replace this line by BODY { font-family: sans-
serif }, I can read my html file because sans-serif seems
to be the normal default font.

It's not because of tthe html file itself, but because of
something which has alter my Windows NT/IE6.0SP1 settings,
because if I browse the following dcument:

http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/css/font/ , the 1st and
4th lines look gibberish as well:

Syntax: font-family: [[<family-name> | <generic-family>],]
* [<family-name> | <generic-family>]
Possible Values: <family-name>
Any font family name may be used
<generic-family>
serif (e.g., Times) <- I can't read this line
sans-serif (e.g., Arial or Helvetica)
cursive (e.g., Zapf-Chancery)
fantasy (e.g., Western) <- I can't read this line
monospace (e.g., Courier)

I have read a lot of document about Cascading Style Sheet,
but they only tell me that in case of generic-family font,
it's the BROWSER (here, IE 6.0SP1) which would choose the
font it would display.

Now, my browser settings seems to have been corrupted, I
am looking into the registry and other places, but I
cannot find where IE default font settings are defined.

I now I could force to a readable font in my IE options, I
know I could reinstall the whole thing, but I want to
understand first what happened and how to fix it, because
it could re-happen again !

Thanks for any help,

Thomas

 

[Hans Le Roy]

Hi Thomas,

Try Tools, Options, Fonts for IE font settings.

In any case, I'd put first some fontnames in the CSS element, and put serif
as last one.

Kind regards

Hans Le Roy
MS MVP Win/IE-OE

 

[Guest]

Thanks but no:

My "Latin-based" font settings are correct
(Arial/CourierNew), I have checked it (I even checked the
User Defined ones. In fact, "Map Symbols" is not a default
font for any of the settings in Tools>Options>Fonts).

I know it is "Map Symbols" that IE is using as the default
serif font, as this is the only font where the "5"
character is replace by a little plane.

But I have not found a single file or entry in the
registry which seems to be using this font...

I am at lost here... :-(

Thomas

PS: I have not written the CSS part of this file, so I
must live with it (It is the documentation of jpgraphs for
php pages).

 

[Thomas]

To narrow down the problem: It is definitely on my
computer.

We are on a distributed network using roaming profiles
from one box to another, and if I log somewhere else, I
can read my file OK with IE. So the problem is on my box,
not on my profile.

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

I am wondering if this could be a related problem:

http://communities.microsoft.com/NewsGroups/previewFrame.as
p?
ICP=GSS3&sLCID=US&sgroupURL=microsoft.public.windows.inetex
plorer.ie6.setup&sMessageID=%253C0d9c01c3dacb%252493a55c90%
(e-mail address removed)%253E

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

And everything is working allright with Mozilla-Firebird...

Well, well, well, if this problem is not solved here, I
know a reliable workaround now...

Thomas