Webmaster Forum / HTML, CSS, Scripts / CSS / February 2005

Then set your browser's defaults to what you prefer. If this is in
reference to a web page you are writing, set your main fonts to a
percentage of 100% in your CSS, such as:

body, td {
   font-size: 100%;
}
h1 {
   font-size: 150%;
}
h2 {
   font-size: 135%;
}
.legalese {
   font-size: 85%;
}

Certainly, as above. Do remember that I (and all your other visitors)
prefer to read your site with my own default size, which is 100%.

This should get you started.

Same size relative to what?

Same physical size? (i.e. always 6mm tall regardless) - use CSS
phsical length units (in, cm, mm, pt, pc) but don't expect browsers to
actually make them the correct physical length. Normally they'll apply
some simplistic length to screen pixels conversion that doesn't take
resolution into account. Also Win IE doesn't allow users to resize
text sized in pt (and possibly the other physical units as well) so
this is a usability and accesibilty problem.

Same subjective size for the user? (i.e. the same visual angle) - in
theory CSS px units should be adjusted so that 1px subtends roughly
the same degree. In practice browsers treat 1px as 1 screen pixel
(which gives the correct angle for "typical" desktop displays. But px
are also unresizable in Win IE so same problem

Same size when compared to an image on the web page? Again px, with
the same problem.

Same size compared with the screen or browser window? (i.e. always
fits ten lines of text on the screen regardless of resolution, etc.) -
not possible with CSS. Could be done with some JavaScript. But if a
user has chosen a larger screen or a higher resolution they could well
have done so in order to see more content at once.

Probably not. Even if it was would it be a good idea? Would you want
the text to be the same size when viewed from less than an arm's
length away on a laptop or palmtop and when viewed from across a room
on a wall mounted display?

    Steve

Exactly the same size?  Yes!!  Buy a PC for each of your visitors,
configure each PC identically, and hold a gun to your visitors' heads to
stop them from changing anything.

Why, you don't care whether people can read it or not?