Question

About using ems for font-size, div width and IE

Asked by: dzash2000

Hi -

I'm just exploring using ems instead of px for font-sizes and div widths and I have a few questions.  

I'm OK with measuring fonts in ems but is it really practical to measure div's widths in ems?

If so, can I use ems for the width of some divs and then use pixels or percent for the width of others?

I've read that 16px is the default font size for browser display. (1em = 16px)
Is this an absolute, cross-platform and cross-browser truth?

If I use ems to size the width of my web page do I need to make a conditional statement with a different # of ems to get the same size in IE?

How do I calculate the difference?

I've learned a lot reading the knowledge base here and elsewhere.  I'd just like to fill in these gaps.

TIA your expert answers.
d2



body{
font-size:100%
} /* 1em 16px */
 
#wrapper{
width:48.75em;
}  /* overall page width of 780px */

                                  
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Asked On
2009-09-17 at 14:34:48ID24741598
Tags

CSS

,

ems

,

font-size

,

IE6

Topics

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

,

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

Participating Experts
2
Points
250
Comments
3

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Answers

 

by: myderrickPosted on 2009-09-17 at 15:31:03ID: 25361698

I read this article yesterday. It helped to understand ems and px etc.

Check it out:

http://webdesign.about.com/cs/typemeasurements/a/aa042803a.htm

Good luck

MD

 

by: therealteunePosted on 2009-09-17 at 16:16:38ID: 25362000

Here's a very good website to convert px to ems or ems to px with also comparison table:
http://pxtoem.com/

 

by: dzash2000Posted on 2009-09-18 at 07:29:55ID: 25366332

Hi myderrick - that link was one of the sites that left me with questions.  Thanks anyway.

Hi therealteune -
Thanks for pxtoem.  The tool allows for making ANY font-size the base size but seems to favor 16px. So I guess that handles my question 3.

I followd a link from pxtoem to Blueprint and see that this particular grid system only use ems for fonts (that handles my first and second question somewhat).  I also noticed that they have a conditional ie.css but I was not able to snag it to try to understand how it was being used.

So my remaining question is regarding differences between IE browsers and other browsers.   Whether I'm using px or ems (although ems have become a less attractive measurement for layout) - are there differences?  How are the differences calculated?

I hope you or someone else knows.

Thanks for the very good input.

d2

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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