PTs vs PXs

Points vs Pixels

[kabanero]

Hello everybody,

I have question. What the difference between points and pixels when specifying the font size? What is better and what should I use in my CSS? I noticed, that Arial 12px looks little bit smaller than Arial 10pt.

Please, advise, or point me to already existing thread.

Thank you.

[Bonusbana]

Hi and welcome.

I dont know much about this topic, but from what Ive learned, the difference is that mac and pc uses different screen resolutions (72DPI for mac and 96DPI for PC). So, when you specify a font size in pt, chances are that the size will increase or decrease depending on the viewers platform.

If you use px, the size will remain the same on both platforms.

[grahamstewart]

Conversely the trouble with px is that it depends what resolution the screen is set to. 9px is pretty readable on a 640x480 or even 800x600 display but is pretty tiny on a big ass 2048 display.

Also defining fonts in px or pt means that anyone using IE will not be able to resize the fonts to their own liking. So I tend to use % or em sizing instead.

[Rambo Tribble]

Points are more appropriate to your style sheets for print media. Pixels are more consistent for display media, but are not scalable. Ems or percentages allow scalability of the font for different display environments.

[kabanero]

Thanks everybody, I got the poit (or pixel):)

I played with IE6 and N7.1 resizing fonts in the browser. Yes, IE6 doesn't scale fonts when they are in px or pt, but N7.1 does!

IE sucks big time.

[grahamstewart]

> IE sucks big time.

Correct :)