font size=X equivalent in CSS, not px, pt, %. I need font size

[sndkick]

I never really paid much attention until now but i have always used CSS to define my font size as either 10px or 12px. This seems to be the closest I can get to font size=1 and size=2 without being much different from Mac to PC and Netscape to IE.

What I have realized is that <font size=1> and <font size=2> are the same in IE and Netscape, regardless of whether it is a Mac or a PC. Using px comes across a little too big on Macs and pt is way too small.

I have tried every combination for font-size=:
px - smaller in Netscape on PC than IE, too big on Macs
pt - waaaay too small on Macs
60% or 75% - waaay too small on Mac
size=1 - defaults to pt i think... maybe px... too small
smaller, larger - different among all platforms

Using the <FONT> tags seems to be the only way to get a font the same across the board, but I need to be able to use CSS for site manageablity, so that I dont' have to go find every font tag in the site if I need to change it.

Has anyone found a good solution to this? I need to somehow make the CSS style declaration interpret the size the same as font size=1 or 2.

If not, what are common font setups that you are using for regular site content and for small content? I don't really ever have a need for anything bigger.

Thanks for any help.

 

[yahve]

Hi,

I usually use different style sheets for IE and NS and use javascript to select the correct one. You could add specific CSS for platforms.

Bye.

 

[kg9ie]

I've never tried this, but the CSS tutorial at Webmonkey says this will work for you. Here's a quote:

<<<<< Begin Quote >>>>>

If you don't like using those units, you can also declare text size through keywords, like so:



P { font-size: large }
There are seven keywords, and they correspond to the numerical values we're used to seeing with <FONT SIZE>:



xx-small
x-small
small
medium
large
x-large
xx-large
With these values, the Web browser is free to decide which exact font size is appropriate for each keyword. For example, x-large is displayed at 28 points in Netscape Communicator (Windows and Mac), 24 points in IE 4 (Windows and Mac), and 18 points in IE 3 for Windows 95.



You can also use two relative keywords:



smaller
larger
A value of smaller tells the browser to adjust the size of the current text down a notch on the keyword scale. For example, if large text has smaller applied, it will then be medium sized. The larger attribute works similarly.



(Note: IE 3 doesn't support the smaller or larger attributes.)

<<<<< End Quote >>>>>

The link to the tutorial:

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/authoring/stylesheets/tutorials/tutorial1.html

Good Luck,
Todd