Sent by Timothy J. Luoma on 26 August 2002 21:09
Stephanie wrote:
> Should em be used for font, margins, padding, placement etc.?
> Is that the preferred and better way to design? I've read opinions for and
> against and can't seem to decide what to do--In general is relative sizing
> better, i.e. ems and %s? or are relative sizes too buggy in browsers?
The one thing everyone agrees on: Points are bad and should not be used
for anything except print style sheets. Don't use points for screen
representation.
Everything after that is up for debate.
Camp 1: Pixels are more reliable than EMs or % or keywords or absolute
sizes in that just about no browser screws up pixels. Therefore, use
Pixels.
Camp 2: Pixels are bad for accessibility as they cannot be resized in
IE/Win 5 and 5, which by far dominate the market, including AOL/Windows
users up to and including version #8. Therefore Pixels should not be
used and you should accept the real-but-limited possible problems with
everything else.
Camp 3: Don't set font sizes and let the user set their defaults (con:
most users probably don't know how)
Personally I'm in camp #2. I don't use EMs or % as much as I use
"absolute" font sizes ("absolute" being something of a misnomer, as most
people consider them to be "relative"). See
http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day_26_using_relative_font_sizes.html
for techniques on how to use them with pixels to avoid problems.
--
30 Days to becoming an Opera Lover
http://www.tntluoma.com/opera/lover/
Day One: Why would I want a different browser?
http://www.tntluoma.com/opera/lover/day01-why/
