Sent by Andrew Stevens on 14 December 2003 15:03
Hi Miriam,
There is an easy CSS solution to your problem, namely
"font-family:inherit".
So, you should be able to do something like:
<pre style="font-family:inherit;">
A Poem
Goes
Here
</pre>
Unfortunately IE doesn't support this.
The most usable CSS solution to your problem would be to use something
like:
<div style="white-space:pre;">
A Poem
Goes
Here
</div>
However, this method, of course, looses its spacing when viewed with a
non-CSS enabled device. The support for the above method is fairly
good, but not ideal (IE 5.5+, NN6+, Opera4+, and I'm assuming Safari
as well).
If I were in your place, I would probably put the poems inside a <pre> element
with a defined font, since I would consider font choice part some
poems' content.
Good luck with your site's conversion to CSS.
--
Andrew
http://www.4serendipity.com
MB> The template for each individual poem page uses indent classes to place
MB> lines that are indented various numbers of ems off the left margin of the
MB> block.
MB> example from http://sfpoetry.org/kamogawa.html :
MB> <span class="indent4">lump of old teakettle brick plastic
MB> garbage</span><br />
MB> <span class="indent5">ten feet from the west bank of the River</span><br />
MB> css:
MB> .indent4 {margin-left: 4em;}
MB> .indent5 {margin-left: 5em;}
MB> But the layout of a poem on the page is part of its content, and using this
MB> method means that a reader with CSS turned off, or in lynx for example,
MB> will actually have lost part of the content. (It would all be left aligned,
MB> whether correctly or not.) So I need to change my basic model.
MB> I see in the archives that Mr. Meyer has suggested 'wrapping the entire
MB> poem in a <pre> element'. This seems really elegant in all ways except one:
MB> I do NOT want to dictate fonts to the readers: I want the words comfortably
MB> offered in the reader's preferred and most familiar-looking font style and
MB> size. Without some kind of font styling, at least a font family, the
MB> browsers will offer it up in fixed width. Probably Courier (90% of our
MB> readers use IE).
MB> Is there some way to amend the suggested rule
MB> pre.poem {font-family: "New Century Schoolbook", Times, TimesNR,
MB> "Times New Roman", serif;}
MB> so that it calls for "your browser's preferred variable-width font, whether
MB> serif or sans-serif, and I don't care which" ?
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