Opera v's IE font sizes

joint css and browser question!

[webgirl]

Hi guys,

I've been developing a site with 2 css files - one for IE and one for Netscape browsers as I'm finding it the easiest way to make sites more accessible and still compliant with W3C validators.

I thought everything was groovy until I re-checked the site on Opera (which I stupidly hadn't done since content had been put up!). I've specified the font size for the body, td, p etc.... as 60% which is perfect in all browsers except Opera - in the preferences for Opera it says 'minimum font size = 6'. If I change this to 10 it works fine but feel this is cheating and most users will obviously have it set on the 'default' - is there a work around for this? I'm hoping someone out there must have come across this before?!

Thanks for any help you could give me....

[Longhaired Genius]

It depends which version of Opera you're using, earlier versions didn't handle percentage font-sizes well but all browsers can deal with ems (0.6em = 60%).

60% is probably too small anyway but a lot depends on which font your using. For instance, other things being equal, Arial will look bigger than Times New Roman because the "x-height" (the height of an x) is bigger in Arial. So Arial at 60% may be readable but Times New Roman at 60% would not.

So my advice is: specify a group of compatible font-families, specify the size in ems and don't make it too small.

[webgirl]

Thanks longhaired genius! I'm using verdana, helvetica, arial and then sans-serif. I know that 60% is small but I have to go on the design that I've been given to build!

Anyway, thanks again for your help :)