RE: font sizes for HTML help (was Re: Verdana 8 for HTML Help or WebH... )

[Daniel Hall <misterhall -at- prodigy -dot- net>]

This is an old issue, revisited here because it's my pet peeve.

You _cannot_ adjust the electronic presentation settings(font size, images,
etc.) to suit every member of your audience. 10 pt Garamond may look fine to
you on your 17" monitor at 1024x768, but what happens when I try to see the
same thing on my 21" monitor running 1600x1200? That picture of your product
may look stunning on your monitor running 32 bit color, but what happens
when I see it at 256?

The best we can do is to make certain baseline assumptions, and format
accordingly. "All users will be running at least 800x600 at 256 colors."
This is what I do myself. But it does not follow that we have addressed the
veiwing concerns of all our users.

This is espically true when working with HTML, as browser settings override
HTML tag attributes. Of course, as I constantly rant, HTML is not a language
for creating page layouts. It's a markup language for creating hypertext
links. It has never (even at version 4+)been intended for that use. That's
why we use Acrobat, and even that doesn't address all electronic formatting
issues. It just prints nicely. :)

My $.01 (Taxes, you know.)

Dan Hall
danhall -at- consultant -dot- com