Will Oller .com

The use of px units, when viewed with IE6 or IE7, leads to fonts you can’t resize (unless you turn off some seriously buried preferences). Every other browser on every platform can enlarge or reduce fonts in any CSS unit, including px. It’s true that pt makes sense only for print stylesheets, but px is a “relative” unit, as I keep reminding people.

Squashing a persistent myth ¶ Personal Weblog of Joe Clark, Toronto

Joe Clark makes a good point about the nature of font resizing in ie vs all other browsers.  I, too, think it should be up to the consumer to use a browser (or accessibility software) that is compatible with their needs.

However, I still use relative font sizes in my web design projects.  It seems to me to be the most accessible method because of the ie limitations.

Whither do I turn? Do I embrace my capitalist side, saying caveat emptor, download Opera if you’ve got a problem with your eyes or do I continue listening to my communistic all-for-one accessibility side that says keep struggling late nights with relative font sizes?

I think the capitalist (and pragmatic) side is winning. Is that wrong?

squish squash