Typography and Web Fonts - The CSS - page 149

■ sans-serif : A typeface design with plain or straight features;
typically Arial
■ cursive : A cursive or handwriting-like typeface
■ monospace : A fixed-width font, commonly used for displaying code or
other text where character width is important like ASCII art; typically
Courier or Courier New
■ fantasy : A highly stylized typeface
See “Specifying Typefaces” later in this chapter for common examples
and additional discussion of choosing and defining font families.
font-size
The font-size property controls the size of the text in the element and
may be defined as a fixed size or a size relative to the font size of the
parent element. Browsers set a default size based on settings in the user
preferences, commonly 16px.
■ <length> : A length measurement
■ <percentage> : A percentage value measured against the computed
value of the parent element's font-size
■ xx-small | x-smal l | small | medium | large | x-large | xx-large : Fixed-
size values along a browser-defined scale
■ larger | smaller : A value relative to the parent element's size; typi-
cally representing a step up or down the previous scale ( xx-small
through xx-large )
Relative and percentage font sizes are based on their parent element's
computed font size. The effect of this behavior may be compounded
when nesting elements. The following sample ( Figure 9.1 on the next
page) demonstrates how font sizes are calculated for nested elements.