Different sizes for alternative fonts?

Randomite · May 29th, 2008, 02:05 PM

Hi,

This might be a rather strange request but I was wondering if it is possible to assign a different font size for alternative fonts?

Example:
Font: 14px arial, verdana;

Now obviously if the users system does not have arial installed it will use verdana at 14px. Is it possible to change the size of the font (verdana) then? So if arial (at 14px) is not on the users system it will use verdana (at say 12px) ?

Is this at all possible?
Look forward to your responses
Thanks

unitedcraig · May 29th, 2008, 02:11 PM

I think the best way to do this is assign the particular piece of centent a div, such as

<div id="main">

and then assign a text size and font to that particular div

Randomite · May 29th, 2008, 02:22 PM

Thanks for the reply, but I don't think that will work in this situation, because the browser will read the new font size regardless, thus making the defualt font the same size. Does that make sense?

unitedcraig · May 29th, 2008, 02:30 PM

Sorry mate not quite sure what you mean, what is it you are aiming to do?

Randomite · May 29th, 2008, 02:47 PM

Basically trying to get the alternative or 'back up' font to be a different size to the originally assigned font.

So, if the user computer does not have (14px) arial installed it will instead show verdana at 12px. Variation of font sizes depending on what the users computer has installed. Does that make more sense?

unitedcraig · May 29th, 2008, 02:49 PM

Yeh i get what your doing now, not too sure how you would do this though sorry mate :S

Randomite · May 29th, 2008, 03:58 PM

No problem. Any else got any other ideas?

Aso · June 1st, 2008, 08:04 AM

I see what you're trying to do, and I think the only way you could solve this would be with the help of JavaScript font detection.

Ok, so it's not the *ideal* solution, but it will work in most cases (and should degrade nicely if the user has JavaScript disabled).

I've only just stumbled on this script myself, so not sure how it works exactly. However, I think it returns an array of available fonts, so you'd simply need to check if the font you're using is in that array - if it's not, serve up the new CSS font-size, otherwise leave it be