Font sizes

[malasorte]

Currently I use a fixed font size and style on my site by a CSS style sheet. It's Verdana size 10pt.

I read that a lot of experts recommend not to assign a font size in your CSS, but instead just go with the browser's set preferences. I would do that, but will the text still align with images I have on the site - text and images are aligned with tables?

Thanks!

Edit: I don't mind realigning the text and images after I change font size, but will it look good in all browsers if I set the font size to 100%?

[Wlauzon]

It's Verdana size 10pt....

Point are for print, not web.

Personally I use mostly em's or percents.

[Car_Guy]

Since we never have complete control of exactly how our pages will be displayed, my solution is to make sure all of my pages display well regardless of font size.

[penders]

Currently I use a fixed font size...

Fixed (font) sizes (eg. px for screen) do not resize for IE users. ie. "View > Text Size > Larger" etc. has no effect in IE, so is not very accessible.

Relative font sizes (em, %, larger, smaller etc.) do resize.

For accessibility, your design shouldn't depend upon a particular font-size, as the user/browser can always change it.

I read that a lot of experts recommend not to assign a font size in your CSS, but instead just go with the browser's set preferences.

Hhhmmm, I'm not sure that is strictly true?! To get any kind of 'design' in there you'll need to define a base font size at some point. I have found that the default IE5 (IE5.5?) font sizes are larger than IE6 and other browsers!

...but will the text still align with images I have on the site - text and images are aligned with tables?

If you position elements using em's then they will be positioned based on the current font-size. If you are using tables, you shouldn't have too much of a problem anyway.