Problem with going bold

bold

[Charlotte]

I'm having a problem with making default text bold. All the attributes (if that's the right word) are the same as they are for the default text but when I add "font-weight: bold;" and apply it to the text, the text shrinks in size and doesn't look like the original text.
Am I being dense and missing something really obvious?!

.default_text {font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; color: #000000; line-height: 20px}

.defaulttextbold {font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; color: #000000; line-height: 20px; font-weight: bold; }

Thanks for any help.

[jetboy_70]

Hi Charlotte,

Welcome to Webmasterworld. :)

Ditch the second class, and instead use:

.default_text b { font-weight: bold; }

This will affect any text defined as 'default_text' inside <b> tags.

[Charlotte]

Hi. Thanks. I meant to say "hello, new to this etc" in my first post but got carried away!
So hi, I'm kind of new to all this and am using and adding to a style sheet I inherited from someone else. Most of it works fine except for this darned "bold" business.

I tried your suggestion but whenever I save a style, I can't have spaces (is that right?).
So I tried "default_textb" instead and that just bolded (if that's a word) the text and not in the font I'm after....

[choster]

If you want to make default text bold for the whole page, IMHO you're better off assigning the weight declaration in a tag rule instead of a class, such as:

html, body, td, p, li {font-weight:bold}

the text shrinks in size and doesn't look like the original text.

How exactly do you mean shrink? Large amounts of bold text will look very different from normal text; you may need to readjust your font sizes to compensate. If you provide a short snippet of your HTML code, we might be able to identify some other style which might be interfering or overriding your other preferences.

whenever I save a style, I can't have spaces

It depends what you're trying to do. You can't have spaces in a class or id name. But spaces are essential for other CSS syntax, .

The example jetboy_70 gave was to select for text inside a <b> tag inside of another element with the class "default_text" assigned, for instance

<style type="text/css">
b {font-weight:normal}
p.default_text b {font-weight:bold}
</style>
[...]
<p><b>This text is not bold</b></p>
<p class="default_text"><b>This text is bold</b>.</p>

[edited by: choster at 2:57 pm (utc) on Feb. 4, 2004]

[jetboy_70]

"whenever I save a style, I can't have spaces"

Using Dreamweaver by any chance? You'll need to edit the CSS be hand.

[Charlotte]

I just knew I've only been swimming about on the surface so far - maybe even just testing the water with a toe.
"Spaces are essential for other CSS syntax"?
I think that's something I need to read more about. I've only been using CSS for fonts.

Re coding, I am indeed using Dreamweaver but when I work on the style sheet, I'm hand coding.

Here's a snippet using the default_text and defaulttextbold things I posted above (I'm testing the look with non-CSS fonts and there's a def difference in look between the CSS bold and the normal bold):

<span class="default_text">default text<br></span>
<span class="defaulttextbold">default text bold</span>
<br>
<strong><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">default text bold not</font></strong></p>
<span class="defaulttextbold">
blah blah - default text bold</span> <p><strong><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">not default text bold - verdana 2 bold </font></strong></p>

[jetboy_70]

Oh dear.

Okay, size 2 is not the same as CSS size 12px. 13px is closer, and bold 13px Verdana should look the same as size 2 bold Verdana (at least in IE).

[Charlotte]

Thanks. 13 px looks better.

[choster]

Charlotte, I really would avoid mixing CSS definitions and <font> tags if at all possible (and preferring the CSS). <font size="2"> may look like Verdana 13px on your machine, but what if someone has their default Internet Explorer text size set to small insted of medium, or is using a different browser which rounds up instead of down or vice versa and so renders a slightly different size? Consistency will also make it easier to debug style conflicts or browser-specific problems.

[Charlotte]

I am sticking to CSS styles only and avoiding font styles. I was just using the Verdana, Size 2 etc text as a comparison. I'm not really using it on the web page. It may seem like I really don't know what I'm doing but I know a little!
Thanks though. :-)