viewer's ability to change text size

in some sites they can, others cannot. WHY?

[portishead]

Why is text size easily changed on some web pages and not on others?

For example, if I set my font preferences in Netscape to 24, in some web pages the font will read 24, in others it will read at 10, at 16, exactly as the webmaster intend it to be read.

Why?

I ask, because I don't want the font size on my pages to be changed, because I have a border going around the edge of the text block in another layer behind the text.

[zackattack]

Hi portishead

I cannot be 100% about this in Netscape, but certainly in IE (90% user base) if you use fixed sizing for fonts (px) the size cannot be changed by the browser's text sizing options

If however viewing in FF any site's text size can be changed regardless of whether it is fixed (px) or relative (% or em)

It is generally seen as a good thing to use relative font sizing as it gives users the ability to increase the font size if they are visually impaired.

The challenge set for all us web designers then becomes how to create a design that will not break up if the font size is increased - there is lots of help on this topic all over the web development community

Hope this helps

[sonjay]

Actually, the user can change text sizes in IE as well, if they enable accessibility options (found somewhere in the Tools->Options smorgasbord, I believe).

[portishead]

I got it. For some reason, a bunch of little spaces escaped the CSS. Thanks a lot for your help.