ems, % or pixels? Which do you use?

I've had a number of people recommend different options to me for sizing fonts in a website. Some using ems, others using % and others (which includes myself) using plain old pixels.

Which do you use, and why...please

 

ems, it will make my site look better in any browser and screen site. I guess it depends on the layout of the site.

 

For font sizes, em would be ideal. Using pixels is less troublesome than using em but if you would like your site to be accessible to most your visitors then I would suggest em. IE isn't capable of resizing text when they are declared as pixels.

 

For now, use a relative size like ems or percentages. IE6 and some other users can't resize text designated in pixels.

This should not be an issue in the future as most modern browsers now support full page zooming.

 

Thanks everyone!

ems it is - I'll go and update my site now

 

i think for ie 6 => px
ie 7 and firefox ems

 

To display properly across browsers, declare the first value as a percent, and then the rest as em's.

For example:
body {font-size:75%}
#content {font-size:1.25em}
#content h1 {font-size:2em}

If you want to make sure your font size is the same including older browsers, set 76% as the font size on the body.

If the text is in a fixed height or width box (for example: a button) where the font will bust out of the content when the font size is increased (think white text on a red button image with a white page bg - its all fine and dandy. Now jack up the font size. All of a sudden, half the text is on the white background - not that easy to read) then using plain old pixels is best.

 

I use em's for font sizes, and %'s for layout. For instance, I want a wrapper div to hold all of my contents, I will specify the width to be around 90%.

I only occasionally use px for layouts when I am creating a fixed width site, or the dimensions of a image... etc.

Nick