# Font size different in IE & Firefox



## mstyers (Jun 10, 2004)

I'm having a problem with small fonts that view differently in IE and Firefox. I have tried to use 9px font size for a button and for a copyright and they appear to be different sizes in IE and Firefox. It seems that the size is much smaller in Firefox that IE. It doesn't seem to matter which font I use, I get the same problem.

Has anyone experienced this? Have you found a solution?

Thanks.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

I've hit this problem as well. I think using "em" as the font metric might provide more consistent results but I'm not 100% sure.

Peace...


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## mstyers (Jun 10, 2004)

Thanks for the response. I tried to use both em an px sizes but that didn't make a difference. I try to stay away from using pt.

I am trying to avoid using different css for IE and Firefox(Mozilla). I have seen that other sites do this.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

Which specific font are you using? Are you noticing font size differences on the same computer but in different browsers?

EDIT: Attached are screenshots of some text in IE 6 (Maxthon 2.0.8), Firefox 3b3, and Opera 9.5b3 on Windows XP.

Peace...


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## amanxman (Mar 28, 2006)

Some browsers will render fonts different - safari and IE7 for example have really now anti-aliasing (spelling??) which smooths edges etc and can make sizes look different...

Also, could it be something as simple as the default text-size/screen zoom in your browser is set to other than normal? in Firefox for example you can change text size thru View/Text Size - if you have this in FF as smaller than "normal" then 9px will display as slightly smaller...



amx


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## mstyers (Jun 10, 2004)

tomdkat - I try to stick with the basic fonts for my text (arial, helvetica, times new roman, verdana). I don't think it is computer specific because I see this difference on three different computers.

amanxman - I have the font view size to be medium on IE and normal on FireFox. You are probably right about the difference in rendering in each browser.

Unfortunately, I think I may have to use different css for each browser or create images for the stuff that will be static.

Thanks.


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## amanxman (Mar 28, 2006)

there's nothing wrong with using different css calls for IE browsers - for a fully accessible website you often need to use ie6 and ie7 specific style sheet amends in addition to main anyway.


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