Verdana

[Jukka K. Korpela]

It is not like you can fork:

Got Verdana?
Then body { font-size: 80%; }
else
body { font-size: 100%; }

Cannot do this in CSS

Ehem, in a sense, you can... The font-size-adjust property was designed
(largely) for reasons like this. It was present in CSS 2.0, dropped from
CSS 2.1, now resurrecting in CSS3 - as even more abstract:
file:///C:/Users/Jukka/Documents/CSS3/font-size-adjust.html

It's a bit tricky conceptually, and implementations have issues. If you set

font-size-adjust: 0.545

(using a value that appears to be the x-height ratio of Verdana
according to the most reliable studies [like mine]), then a browser
should behave so that text in Verdana is not affected and text in other
fonts gets size-adjusted (normally upwards) with a factor determined by
their x-height rations.

But among commonly used browsers, only Firefox supports
font-size-adjust. And using the code above, it size-adjusts Verdana,
too, so it probably has a wrong idea of its x-height. Worse still, it
adjusts it downwards.

My suspicions were confirmed when I look at
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/CSS/font-size-adjust
where the value of 0.58 is used (it was mentioned as an example in the
CSS 2.0 spec, and it is simply wrong).

So in a sense you can. Allow 8 years for browsers to catch up (including
the fix to Firefox, which might be the hardest part).

 

[dorayme]

You should *never* specify fonts in absolute sizes. Period. You are
simply being hostile to your potential viewers. The fact that other
webmonkeys are fucking morons is not an excuse.

It is simply not true that you should *never* do this these days.
There are circumstances where it will do no harm and you will not be
being hostile to anyone.

 

[Tim W]

You should *never* specify fonts in absolute sizes. Period. You are
simply being hostile to your potential viewers. The fact that other
webmonkeys are fucking morons is not an excuse.

This is a bit absurd. It isn't hostile. If you are publishing something
you make decisions on how to make it accessible to which people
according to your own interests and abilities. If I choose to publish on
paper and photocopy it I can, If I choose not to have my website
translated into spanish then that's my decision as it would be if I say
I can't be bothered with IE users or people who for some inexplicable
reason want to zoom just the text and not the whole lovely page as one
as i designed it. That's just my perogative.

Tim W

 

[Tim W]

You should *never* specify fonts in absolute sizes. Period. You are
simply being hostile to your potential viewers. The fact that other
webmonkeys are fucking morons is not an excuse.

This is a bit absurd. It isn't hostile. If you are publishing something
you make decisions on how to make it accessible to which people
according to your own interests and abilities. If I choose to publish on
paper and photocopy it I can, If I choose not to have my website
translated into spanish then that's my decision as it would be if I say
I can't be bothered with IE users or people who for some inexplicable
reason want to zoom just the text and not the whole lovely page as one
as i designed it. That's just my perogative.

Tim W

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Beauregard T. Shagnasty says...

I had to press Ctrl-Plus three times so I could read it.
[your Verdana numbers reference site]

I had no problems reading it. Probably age plays a role, i.e. at a
certain age people are unable to read small text, but then there are
reading glasses for this problem.

Then we can assume you don't care about us visitors "of a certain age."
BTW, my glasses give me a measured and tested 20/20 vision.

You have beautiful photographs on your site, but I can't say much about
your choice of font and size.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Ehem, in a sense, you can... The font-size-adjust property was designed
(largely) for reasons like this. It was present in CSS 2.0, dropped from
CSS 2.1, now resurrecting in CSS3 - as even more abstract:
file:///C:/Users/Jukka/Documents/CSS3/font-size-adjust.html

Gotcha! Better to point to an example online ;-)

It's a bit tricky conceptually, and implementations have issues. If you set

font-size-adjust: 0.545

(using a value that appears to be the x-height ratio of Verdana
according to the most reliable studies [like mine]), then a browser
should behave so that text in Verdana is not affected and text in other
fonts gets size-adjusted (normally upwards) with a factor determined by
their x-height rations.

But among commonly used browsers, only Firefox supports
font-size-adjust. And using the code above, it size-adjusts Verdana,
too, so it probably has a wrong idea of its x-height. Worse still, it
adjusts it downwards.

My suspicions were confirmed when I look at
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/CSS/font-size-adjust
where the value of 0.58 is used (it was mentioned as an example in the
CSS 2.0 spec, and it is simply wrong).

So in a sense you can. Allow 8 years for browsers to catch up (including
the fix to Firefox, which might be the hardest part).

Interesting! Learn something but still technically I am still correct.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

I had no problems reading it. Probably age plays a role, i.e. at a
certain age people are unable to read small text, but then there are
reading glasses for this problem.

You seem to miss the point. If you when scale the text size down for the
over-sized Verdana, but the user only has the normal-sized fonts on
their system then the text is even smaller!

It is like trying to get one-sized uniform to fit on your celebrity
basketball team of George Stephanopoulos, Ryan Seacrest, Jon Stewart,
Paul Reubens, and Shaq O'Neal!

 

[Allodoxaphobia]

I don't know. My site uses verdana.

hrrrumph.. Your site may _specify_ Verdana, but my _browser_ pretty
much functions as _I_ see fit.

Jonesy

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Gotcha! Better to point to an example online ;-)

D'oh! Happens to me every millennium! And I wasn't even trying to point
to my test page (its address had just crept into my clipboard) but to
the CSS3 Fonts draft on font-size-adjust:
http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-fonts/#font-size-adjust-prop

In addition to the practical considerations, which make the property
questionable, or maybe worse than useless, there's a theoretical note to
be made. The property revolves around the "aspect value", or "aspect
ratio" in more common parlance, i.e. the x-height of the font divided by
the font size. This means that we consider the relative height of
lowercase letters without ascenders or descenders. But that's not all!
What about those ascenders or descenders, about uppercase letters, and
about diacritic marks, which are frequent in many languages (Finnish,
French, Vietnamese for example)? They also affect the "real", visual
size of a font, as compared with the font-size property.

This reminds me of my favorite example about Verdana and line height:
set the font to Verdana, do not set line-height at all (i.e. let
browsers use their default for Verdana), and test with some text
containing loads of "g" and "Å". You will see how the "g" brutally
attacks the ring of "Å" on a line below it.

Of course, many other combinations of a letter with a descender and an
uppercase letter with a diacritic mark create similar effects, if you
default line-height when using Verdana. It's just so that "Å" is one of
my favorite letters, and a very common letter in my third-best language
Swedish, and a typographer's nightmare. It is virtually impossible to
design "Å" properly, but a font like Verdana has failed in a
particularly serious manner. It uses such a large part of the font
height for uppercase letters that any diacritic above them is bound to
cause damage, to the letter.

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

This is a bit absurd. It isn't hostile. If you are publishing something
you make decisions on how to make it accessible to which people
according to your own interests and abilities. If I choose to publish on
paper and photocopy it I can, If I choose not to have my website
translated into spanish then that's my decision as it would be if I say
I can't be bothered with IE users or people who for some inexplicable
reason want to zoom just the text and not the whole lovely page as one
as i designed it. That's just my perogative.

It is also hostile.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

Then why were you unable to read that page without zooming?

Have you read what he has been saying about Verdana?

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

Less than 1% of users don't have Verdana... (all Windows and Mac users
have it, only 33% of Linux users don't; Linux is used by just 2% of all
users).

Those Linux users who don't have verdana could install it on their
systems, which would make sense given that verdana is widely used in the
web.

It is probably easier to skip your Website. After all, it is not
as if there is a shortage of Websites to view.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Less than 1% of users don't have Verdana...

How do you know that?

(all Windows and Mac users
have it, only 33% of Linux users don't; Linux is used by just 2% of all
users).

And how do you know that?

Those Linux users who don't have verdana could install it on their
systems, which would make sense given that verdana is widely used in the
web.

You'll go far in web design with that approach. Unless I have a dying
need for the information on a website, if it not comfortable to read for
whatever reason, I move on...plenty others out there.

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Have you read what he has been saying about Verdana?

...which would be, I don't have it so I see his off-white-on-blue text at
about 75% of what *he* sees it at.

Alfred doesn't understand any of this. I guess we'll just let him stew in
his own juices, offending people with his hard-to-read website.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Different stats, but all indicate that Linux has even less than 2%
market share.

And since Linux is not sold these state are firm because...?

I have currently have 6 systems here listed that would be listed a
"Windows" since they where sold with Windows installed, but only 1, the
one I am typing on has Windows running. But that is not the point. In
web design when people click you have about 5 seconds to "invite them
in". If they are not hooked, ans especially as a result of
accessibility--poof! They are gone. Look at your web specs for session
times.

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

And since Linux is not sold these state are firm because...?

Every time I see a stat that says "Linux users are NN%" I have to laugh.
There is no way to tell. I can download one copy of, say, the Ubuntu .iso
file and install it on ten dozen computers, overwriting the Windows that
came with them. No way will anyone ever count those PCs as Linux PCs.

But! They will *all* be counted as *Windows* PCs because they were sold
with it.

Oh, and none of those ten dozen PCs will have Verdana on them...

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Every time I see a stat that says "Linux users are NN%" I have to laugh.
There is no way to tell. I can download one copy of, say, the Ubuntu .iso
file and install it on ten dozen computers, overwriting the Windows that
came with them. No way will anyone ever count those PCs as Linux PCs.

But! They will *all* be counted as *Windows* PCs because they were sold
with it.

Oh, and none of those ten dozen PCs will have Verdana on them...

But that *had* Verdana on once so that counts, right? ;-)

 

[dorayme]

Regarding the fixed font issue: on an image gallery site, the images
have a *fixed* size in pixel. On such a site it doesn't make sense to
have fonts with a variable size because the images have a fixed size
i.e. would not scale with the font. If the font is too small, the right
way to view such a site is to use the zoom function of the browser.

In a photo gallery site using a font (in the browser) other than that
chosen by the site designer does not make sense, because the proportions
and the look of the site will change.

It is not inconsistent with that pictures on a site are bitmapped and
will stay the size that the author predicts that the text will be the
size he predicts. The fact that quite enough people need to zoom up or
down on individual pages or have private and unpredictable text sizes
set in their prefs/options guarantees that the text will vary in size
from computer to computer around the world. This fact is independent
of what font and size is suggested in the CSS.

And then there is the fact that most people these days probably don't
use Zoom Text Only, causing them to quite often see even pictures
zooming along with the text. Either because ZTO is not the default
setting in browsers or because it is just not an option.

While I am at it, I don't think your site is that bad in regard to
fonts and you are right, it won't kill those who need to up their text
size on a tactical basis. We who need to (I am one of them quite
often, depending on the time of the day and how much there is to read)
are *used* to doing this. But I disagree with you that a photographic
site or any site that has lots of pictures cannot be quite flexible
and fluid in the design and still good and true.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Why don't you install it?

In case you don't realize it it is not free:

<http://www.fonts.com/font/microsoft-corporation/verdana>

So if you install the half-dozen or so of MS's often-used-but-over-sized
fonts in websites it about $200...

Anyways nothing wrong with using Verdana just if you don't make the base
font size <100%. The problem that you either cannot grasp or just plain
ignoring is when you compensate for Verdana's over-sized appearance by
making the font size < 100% then normal sized fonts (the ones that will
be substituted if Verdana is not available) will be way too small.

 

[Joy Beeson]

I had no problems reading it.

Since you have made it plain that you don't want me to read what you
write, I have set a filter to make sure I don't inadvertently invade
your privacy.