to or not to specify font sizes

[gm1234]

Now this is really serious. There are some who tell to specify font sizes to 10 or 12 points, some who tell to specify them in percentage as 80 to 90% and some othere who ask that font size should not be specified at all. I wonder which one is best according to the usabilty point of view. Any help?

[tthurgo]

Originally posted by gm1234
Now this is really serious. There are some who tell to specify font sizes to 10 or 12 points, some who tell to specify them in percentage as 80 to 90% and some othere who ask that font size should not be specified at all. I wonder which one is best according to the usabilty point of view. Any help?

I use points, because the percentage doesn't really help me make it fit in my design. I wouldn't use pixels (px), because those look bad in different resolutions. Sometimes becomes unreadable.

My two cents.

:shakeazz:

[Allen]

i believe points can still be adjusted by the reader - esp. if they have windows accessibility ON -- pixels cant be adjusted at all.

you might check this too:
http://www.htmlcenter.com/tutorials/...m/162/General/

[Webnauts]

If we are talking here about accessibility and usability, you must use "em" and a minimum size 0.8 em.

Here is some additional help for calculating sizes:

100% = 1.0em = 16px = 15pt
95% = 0.95em = 15px = 14pt
90% = 0.9em = 14px = 13pt
85% = 0.85em = 13px = 12pt
80% = 0.8em = 12px = 11pt

I hope this info helped!