CSS Pocket Reference, 3rd Edition

Name

font-size

Values:

xx-small | x-small | small | medium | large | x-large | xx-large | smaller | larger | <length> | <percentage> | inherit

Initial value:

medium

Applies to:

All elements.

Inherited:

Yes.

Percentages:

Calculated with respect to the parent element’s font size.

Computed value:

An absolute length.

Description:

This property sets the size of the font. The size can be defined as an absolute size, a relative size, a length value, or a percentage value. Negative length and percentage values are not permitted. The dangers of font-size assignment are many and varied, and points are particularly discouraged in web design, as there is no certain relationship between points and the pixels on a monitor. It’s a matter of historical interest that due to early misunderstandings, setting the font-size to medium led to different results in early versions of Internet Explorer and Navigator 4.x. Some of these problems are covered in Chapter 5 of CSS: The Definitive Guide, Third Edition (O’Reilly); for further discussion, refer to http://style.cleverchimp.com/. For best results, authors are encouraged to use either percentages or em units for font sizing. As a last resort, pixel sizes can be used, but this approach has serious accessibility penalties because it prevents users from resizing text in IE/Win, even when it is too small to read comfortably. Most other browsers allow users to resize text regardless of how it has been sized.

Examples:

h2 {font-size: 200%;} code {font-size: 0.9em;} p.caption ...