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

Fuly agree with all of that.

But there's also the question of whether it's the right answer.

We don't really know some important features of what the original
poster is doing (which is why a test URL is always welcome here).

Assuming (and IMHO that's a big assumption) that there is some genuine
reason why this image of a word has to be used in running text...

Then, presuming that the image includes descenders, then for sure the
lower edge of the image should not be aligned to the font baseline,
which is what's going to happen by default in Standards mode, right?

The most obvious feature of text, and what readers will visually take
to be the correct alignment, is the font baseline.  Ideally, that's
what one would want to line-up between the text and the image: but the
question is, how to do that well?  I.e without having to resort to
sizing things in absolute units?

If the lower edge of the image is aligned to the lower edge of the
font (vertical-align: bottom), there's no guarantee that the font
baseline as seen in the image, will align with the font baseline of
the surrounding text.

How about sizing the image in em units, in the hope of matching the
text?  Might help a bit.  In the end, if none of the keyword positions
prove suitable, it's allowed to specify vertical align (relative to
the *baseline*, remember, not to "bottom") in actual length units,
such as em units, or a percentage.  Positive values raise the box,
negative values lower it.  But unless the sizing unit is properly
chosen, then as soon as the reader starts zooming the text, the
author's careful computations will go pear-shaped.