standards for website widths

[villacongo]

is there a universally accepted standard for the width of a site - 700 pixels? 800?

thanks.

[geoapa]

If you are building a non-fluid site, you'll have to account for the browser's vertical scroll bar width. This varies with different browsers but I find that a width of 740 pixels works well.

[netguy]

villacongo...

I, like geoapa, typically use 740px as my default for most sites.

The important thing to remember is if you have anything that a visitor may want to print out, only the first 660px will print on a fixed design. I generally use a 120 pixel right column for skysrcapers, then the primary content will print in full.

[jasonc]

Here's a very useful article on the subject - [hotwired.lycos.com...]

[Nick_W]

>standard width

Sure is: 100%

Seriously, it's a hotly debated topic but I feel the need to argue the case for fluid layout ;)

I get soooo mad when I visit a site and it's either some silly little window in the middle of my screen or half of it is off-screen..

Nick

[netguy]

Jasonc, good find.

It appears that the 800x600 'safe' size is 744px (so 740px should be fine). The latest display stats across all our sites is 44% for 800x600, 1024x768 or more is 49%, 640x480 is 2%, and 5% for all others.

Of course I can't argue with Nick_W either. When possible, a fluid design can be pretty effective as well.

Whether fluid or fixed, I always like to play with the various display properties to see what each design looks like at 800x600 and above.

[jasonc]

That one has been in my bookmarks for a while, I can tell you.

I've done a site designed for 1024x768 recently (968px width) - targetted towards gamers who generally have higher spec machines esp. in the graphics card area. However, 740px is generally the std for me to design to.