Fixed Font Size - Whats the Standard?

[andmunn]

I just designed one of my new pages, and want to go with a fixed font size (i.e.// pixel (px) size as opposed to variable (em)).

What would the "standard" or minimum be here? Are we looking at 12px?

Any advice appreciated.

Andrew.

[encyclo]

It depends on the font: Arial is narrower than Verdana, so you need a higher minimum font size for it to remain legible for the majority of users. Serif fonts such as Georgia or Times New Roman are harder to read on the screen than sans-serif fonts, so you need to take that into account too.

I would say that for Verdana (the most legible major font) you can fix a minimum of 12px for body text and 11px for footers, etc. From experience, 13px tends to work best accompanied by adequate line-height (1.3 to 1.5).

Of course, there is no "safe" fixed value - resizeable text has a huge advantage - but the above should be a starting point if you finally choose fixed.