Ever since I upgraded my Windows display to 120 DPI (kind of a necessary
change), fonts have been clearer and graphics have been crisper. However,
the 25% automatic increase in the text size on my web site has thrown it all
askew.

Combining my monitor's native resolution of 1280x1024 and the XP setting of
120 DPI, everything else is great, but now standard Serif on my web site
looks like I'm reading a Dr. Seuss book.

Obviously, downscaling my text (i.e. size: x%) will apply to everybody, so
that's a no-win scenario. Now I see myself having to "clean up" the text
flow in my entire web site (sizes too big, one word on the last line of a
paragraph, etc.).

I've been educated enough to know that coding text in pixels is a no-no. But
I need some guidance in reoptimizing my text so it may perhaps be most
comfortable for everybody.

Does anybody have any creative insight on how to solve these problems?
Thanks! :-)

I have just noticed something. It seems as though Mozilla Firefox 1.5
renders the HTML text the way it would be at the XP default DPI of 96.

Also, I was wondering, when you change the text size via Internet Explorer's
View menu - how much of a text size change is it, in numbers? Does anyone
know?

"Yeah" <yeah@positive.net> wrote in message
news:KgtNf.55608$Ug4.4204@dukeread12...[color=blue]
> Ever since I upgraded my Windows display to 120 DPI (kind of a necessary
> change), fonts have been clearer and graphics have been crisper. However,
> the 25% automatic increase in the text size on my web site has thrown it
> all askew.
>
> Combining my monitor's native resolution of 1280x1024 and the XP setting
> of 120 DPI, everything else is great, but now standard Serif on my web
> site looks like I'm reading a Dr. Seuss book.
>
> Obviously, downscaling my text (i.e. size: x%) will apply to everybody, so
> that's a no-win scenario. Now I see myself having to "clean up" the text
> flow in my entire web site (sizes too big, one word on the last line of a
> paragraph, etc.).
>
> I've been educated enough to know that coding text in pixels is a no-no.
> But I need some guidance in reoptimizing my text so it may perhaps be most
> comfortable for everybody.
>
> Does anybody have any creative insight on how to solve these problems?
> Thanks! :-)
>[/color]

Yeah wrote:[color=blue]
> Ever since I upgraded my Windows display to 120 DPI (kind of a necessary
> change), fonts have been clearer and graphics have been crisper. However,
> the 25% automatic increase in the text size on my web site has thrown it all
> askew.[/color]

The whole concept of 'screen resolution' has been utterly bastardised.
In one place, Windows tells me that my 'screen resolution' is 1280x1024.
In another it says that if things look too small I should 'increase
the DPI to compensate'.

Now logic tells me that if I pack more dots into each inch, images will
look smaller - but that ain't what happens.

[color=blue]
> Combining my monitor's native resolution of 1280x1024 and the XP setting of
> 120 DPI, everything else is great, but now standard Serif on my web site
> looks like I'm reading a Dr. Seuss book.[/color]

What you have done is told your display device to use a grid of 1280
pixels by 1024 pixels to display images (noting that each pixel is made
of three dots - one each for red, green and blue). Those numbers may
not bear any relationship to the number of physical pixels that your
screen has. LCD screens look best if the grid dimensions are the same
as the display's physical pixels, CRT screens can usually look good for
a wide range of grid sizes - a 17" CRT will still look good at
1600x1200, but a 17" LCD would look like crap (if you could set it that
high) even though the CRT almost certainly has a smaller physical screen
in inches or cm.

I'll guess that you have an LCD that actually has 1280x1024 physical
pixels and that they are are spaced at about 96 pixels per inch (ppi).
Measurements of my own physical screen show they may be at 94 ppi.

By telling Windows to use a setting of 120 dots per inch (dpi), you are
telling it to send image to the screen that would appear correctly sized
if your screen had 120 ppi. The fact that your physical screen probably
is 96 ppi means that the images appear larger.

[color=blue]
> Obviously, downscaling my text (i.e. size: x%) will apply to everybody, so
> that's a no-win scenario. Now I see myself having to "clean up" the text
> flow in my entire web site (sizes too big, one word on the last line of a
> paragraph, etc.).[/color]

You are probably now seeing your site the same way someone with a
standard display of 1024x768 sees it. Since there are still a very
large number of screens of that size, you may have just realised what
your pages actually looked like to a good proportion of your visitors.

Note that shifting your screen 'resolution' to 120 dpi with a setting of
1280x1024 pixels effectively makes your screen 1024x768 pixels.

Have a read here:

<URL:http://blogs.msdn.com/fontblog/archive/2005/11/08/490490.aspx>

[color=blue]
> I've been educated enough to know that coding text in pixels is a no-no. But
> I need some guidance in reoptimizing my text so it may perhaps be most
> comfortable for everybody.[/color]

Make the majority of the text content on your site 100%. Let users
adjust their browser settings to whatever suits them best. Design your
site so that it is functional at any reasonable screen size (say 320x240
up to whatever) - it may only look fantastic within a small range, but
it should still be functional for everyone.

Note that IE7 allows users to set a 'zoom' factor to make entire pages
look larger/smaller - won't that play havoc with font sizes?
[color=blue]
> Does anybody have any creative insight on how to solve these problems?[/color]

Yes, see above. But that is a goal, in reality you will likely have to
compromise.

Incidentally, 'pixel' is considered to be a relative unit, though many
believe it to be absolute. 'Point' is an absolute unit as it should be
the same size regardless of the display device.


--
Rob

On Wed, 01 Mar 2006 21:04:18 -0600, Yeah sent:
[color=blue]
> Ever since I upgraded my Windows display to 120 DPI (kind of a necessary
> change), fonts have been clearer and graphics have been crisper. However,
> the 25% automatic increase in the text size on my web site has thrown it
> all askew.[/color]

Seems to be a stupidity on the behalf of software designers that they play
with the size (item proportional to screen space) at the same time as the
resolution (the number of dots used to draw an item, which is independent
of the size). A quick example of one of the few things that gets it
right is that changing resolutions on printers makes negligible font size
difference, as it should, 12 point text remains 12 point text, it just is
drawn better.
[color=blue]
> Combining my monitor's native resolution of 1280x1024 and the XP setting
> of 120 DPI, everything else is great, but now standard Serif on my web
> site looks like I'm reading a Dr. Seuss book.[/color]

Have you also played with your default system font size? I've had to do
that on other systems, that are too braindead to understand what changing
font drawing resolution really means, though I've not done this with XP.
[color=blue]
> Obviously, downscaling my text (i.e. size: x%) will apply to everybody, so
> that's a no-win scenario. Now I see myself having to "clean up" the text
> flow in my entire web site (sizes too big, one word on the last line of a
> paragraph, etc.).[/color]

If you don't specify sizes, at all, well other than headings being
*somewhat* bigger than body text, then you don't have a problem with the
website content. It's a browser issue, for *you*.

Word wrap is another matter. If you were playing with preformatted text
for some reason (e.g. poetry), then you might have to think about it,
though there's no good solution if your lines are very long. As far as
widows and orphans, your rendition of a page where lines are able to flow
as required (non preformatted text), is no indication of someone else's.
They may, and probably, do have different reading window dimensions.
[color=blue]
> I've been educated enough to know that coding text in pixels is a no-no.
> But I need some guidance in reoptimizing my text so it may perhaps be most
> comfortable for everybody.[/color]

As far as main body text sizing is concerned, do *NOTHING* and it's
optimised. Faff about with sizing and you're instantly de-optimised it.

--
If you insist on e-mailing me, use the reply-to address (it's real but
temporary). But please reply to the group, like you're supposed to.

This message was sent without a virus, please destroy some files yourself.

RobG wrote:[color=blue]
> Yeah wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Ever since I upgraded my Windows display to 120 DPI (kind of a
>> necessary change), fonts have been clearer and graphics have been
>> crisper. However, the 25% automatic increase in the text size on my
>> web site has thrown it all askew.[/color]
>
>
> The whole concept of 'screen resolution' has been utterly bastardised.
> In one place, Windows tells me that my 'screen resolution' is 1280x1024.
> In another it says that if things look too small I should 'increase the
> DPI to compensate'.
>
> Now logic tells me that if I pack more dots into each inch, images will
> look smaller - but that ain't what happens.
>
>[color=green]
>> Combining my monitor's native resolution of 1280x1024 and the XP
>> setting of 120 DPI, everything else is great, but now standard Serif
>> on my web site looks like I'm reading a Dr. Seuss book.[/color][/color]

Leave the DPI at 96 and change the screen to 1024x768 gives exactly the
same result in theory, but in practice the quality of text will likely
be very different (it certainly is for me).


[...][color=blue]
>
> By telling Windows to use a setting of 120 dots per inch (dpi), you are
> telling it to send image to the screen that would appear correctly sized
> if your screen had 120 ppi. The fact that your physical screen probably
> is 96 ppi means that the images appear larger.[/color]

Absurd, isn't it?

The rationale for Windows pretending to have a display of 96 dpi when in
fact screen were physically 72 ppi was to make text look larger. The
whole relationship is so screwed up that web designers now set the font
size to 80% because otherwise text looks too freakin' big - they are
compensating for the fact that the text was artificially enlarged in the
first place.

Now that screens really are at 96 ppi (or higher), the text is too small
again so users change the 'resolution' to 120 dpi and the whole freakin'
kludge continues /ad infinitum/.

What a crock.


[...]
[color=blue][color=green]
>> I've been educated enough to know that coding text in pixels is a
>> no-no. But I need some guidance in reoptimizing my text so it may
>> perhaps be most comfortable for everybody.[/color][/color]

Stop pissing around with font sizes. Use Firefox and set the base font
size to what is suitable for you. Firefox will scale fonts from there -
try it at about 16 to 18 pt or maybe 20 pt.

Let users set whatever is comfortable for them.

[...]
[color=blue]
> Incidentally, 'pixel' is considered to be a relative unit, though many
> believe it to be absolute.[/color]

Absolutely. ;-)


--
Zif

On Thu, 2 Mar 2006, RobG quoted from an article that doesn't seem to
have propagated to here:
[color=blue]
> Yeah wrote:
>[color=green]
> > Combining my monitor's native resolution of 1280x1024 and the XP
> > setting of 120 DPI, everything else is great, but now standard
> > Serif on my web site looks like I'm reading a Dr. Seuss book.[/color][/color]

AIUI, MS Serif is a bitmapped font which is available only in a
limited number of sizes. It also has a very impoverished character
repertoire. Avoid it! Search out and destroy any contexts where MS
is still trying to use it.

For example, in XP Control Panel> Display> Appearance> Advanced
and look in the various components where text size and font are
used.

In most applications, it /is/ feasible to get good results using the
custom dpi setting which calibrates the display (I used 135dpi for
quite a long time in Win2K), although there are a few applications
which are freaked-out by finding a dpi setting which isn't one of the
two standard ones. If you're not prepared for quite a bit of fiddling
and hassle, it might be better just to pick the nearest standard
setting (i.e 120dpi) as your basis, and then twiddle the fonts from
there to suit your taste, no matter how illogical it seems.

As far as web browsers are concerned, if you're worried about fonts
then you're better off using a www-compatible browser, instead of the
operating system component that thinks it's a web browser. There
/are/ browser font options that can be configured for IE, but the
consequences of doing so are quite complex, especially when a good
character repertoire is needed.

good luck

On Thu, 02 Mar 2006 06:20:25 +0000, RobG sent:
[color=blue]
> Now logic tells me that if I pack more dots into each inch, images will
> look smaller - but that ain't what happens.[/color]

Only if you're maintaining a 1:1 dot/pixel ratio. Take printers, for
example, you used to be able specify a wide range of resolutions, and only
crap printer drivers would resize the printout as you did so. It just
more or less dots to draw the same image. Sometimes you printed with more
dots than the image actually contained, sometimes the other way around.

--
If you insist on e-mailing me, use the reply-to address (it's real but
temporary). But please reply to the group, like you're supposed to.

This message was sent without a virus, please destroy some files yourself.

"Yeah" <yeah@positive.net> wrote in message
news:KgtNf.55608$Ug4.4204@dukeread12...[color=blue]
> Ever since I upgraded my Windows display to 120 DPI (kind of a necessary
> change), fonts have been clearer and graphics have been crisper. However,
> the 25% automatic increase in the text size on my web site has thrown it[/color]
all[color=blue]
> askew.
>
> Combining my monitor's native resolution of 1280x1024 and the XP setting[/color]
of[color=blue]
> 120 DPI, everything else is great, but now standard Serif on my web site
> looks like I'm reading a Dr. Seuss book.
>
> Obviously, downscaling my text (i.e. size: x%) will apply to everybody, so
> that's a no-win scenario. Now I see myself having to "clean up" the text
> flow in my entire web site (sizes too big, one word on the last line of a
> paragraph, etc.).
>
> I've been educated enough to know that coding text in pixels is a no-no.[/color]
But[color=blue]
> I need some guidance in reoptimizing my text so it may perhaps be most
> comfortable for everybody.
>
> Does anybody have any creative insight on how to solve these problems?
> Thanks! :-)[/color]

120dpi is a large font size. You are of course aware that you or visitors to
your site can select a smaller font size in IE (or another browser)? If I'm
talking down to you I apologize. Look at this for insight about high res
monitors and scaling in IE:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...ew/highdpi.asp
IEDesigner