Posted by Jane D on May 25, 2001, at 9:58:09
In reply to Re: Would it be possible to change the font?, posted by mist on May 24, 2001, at 2:10:30
>...fonts are different on different web sites I visit, even though my browser is set to whatever the default font is (I’ve never changed it).
>
> For example, if you go to healthboards.com and look at their current format the font is smaller and different than in the old format from last year (which I think was better). (The archived files using the larger font are still accessible on their site.) And other message boards I’ve read have different fonts as well. So how would changing the font on my browser make a difference?
I don't program in html (the language used to create web sites) but I know a little. There are probably a lot of programmers and 10 year olds out there that could explain this far better. But anyway...A web designer can specify a specific font size. The browser settings don't change this.
More often the page is set to use the browsers default font - or a font 1 or 2 or x sizes bigger or smaller than the default font. This is what most pages, including this one, do. This is how there can be different sizes of fonts on the page. So, on this page, if you change your default settings from small to large both the subject line and the text of a post will get bigger but the subject line will still be bigger than the text.
The healthboards main page which you used as an example seems to use both kinds of font. It has a line on the top of the page that does not change size but the rest of the text does.
You can look at the source code (instructions) for these pages by using the view source option and you'll see among all the gibberish the words "font size".
This is probably far more than you ever wanted to know but it's actually kind of fun to play with the browser default settings. It does make many pages much easier to read. I only recently discovered how to change font size myself - I bet that's obvious from the way I've gone on. I'm wondering now what other good options there are that I never noticed.
How tos if you're interested:
To change font in the current version of Internet Explorer: Select "View", then "Text Size", then pick a size from Smallest to Largest.In Netscape its almost the same. Select "View" then either "Increase Font" or "Decrease Font". Navigator only changes the font in the active frame - whichever one is currently selected.
To view the source code is "View" and then "Source" in Explorer and "View" then "Page Source" in Netscape. This doesn't work well with frames like this page uses but you can get an idea by going to the non frame format by clicking on "Babble" at the very top of the page.
poster:Jane D
thread:1266
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20010315/msgs/1305.html