I stumbled across http://informationarchitects.net/blog/100e2r/, a blog entry that argues for using browser 100% font sizes for body text. I was surprised that the text claimed that the font size on that page was the browser default size, as it is larger than I expected.
I took a look at the inherited style for body text from the above link, and it is the following:
font-size: 1.313em;
It is my understanding of style sheets that this means that fonts should render at 131.3% of the browser default size. So is the blog incorrect that the font size shown is the browser’s default size?
The company’s website has an Apple focus, so I thought maybe the answer to the question has to do with DPI settings since Apple defaults to 72 and Microsoft defaults to 96. 96/72 is close in value to 1.313.
I have my Chrome fonts set to the default size, 16. Since I’m running Windows, I think that means 16 pixels or 12 points. On a Mac, is the default font size also 16 pixels and therefore 16 points?
In 2006 when this article was written they had another design, found it in archive http://web.archive.org/web/20070706194102/http://www.informationarchitects.jp/100E2R/ — you can see
font: 100%/1.45 Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;which gives 16px on default desktop browser 🙂