Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

Alternative to Arial Narrow supported by Linux

5,807 views
Skip to first unread message

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 3, 2008, 3:27:59 PM3/3/08
to
Hi

I define my html headings and headers using:
font-family: "Arial Narrow", "Helvetica Narrow", Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif

However, according to the screen captures I've done at
browsershots.org Linux machines display this using an a very wide
metrics indeed, to the extent that the number of characters per line
on a Linux machine is almost half that displayed on Windows or Mac
machines when viewing the same web page.

Is there a reasonably narrow headline (sans serif) font that comes as
standard with Linux which I could use as a substitute for Arial Narrow/
Helvetica Narrow?

Dave

PS - I've noticed that Wikipedia uses a reasonably narrow font for
their main article headings, but (a) I can't work out what font-family
they are using (their css files are a labyrinth and I can't make sense
of them); and (b) I can't test how their headings look under Linux,
because they have blocked browsershots.org with a robots.txt file.

Dave

Armadillo

unread,
Mar 4, 2008, 1:47:03 AM3/4/08
to

> I define my html headings and headers using:
> font-family: "Arial Narrow", "Helvetica Narrow", Arial, Helvetica,
> sans-serif

> Is there a reasonably narrow headline (sans serif) font that comes as


> standard with Linux which I could use as a substitute for Arial Narrow/
> Helvetica Narrow?

I don't know a substitute, instead I'll suggest that you don't use Arial Narrow or Helvetica Narrow at all. These are not 'real' designs but just numerically squeezed versions resulting distorted characters in which for example horizontal stems are thicker than vertical stems.

Often condensed type is used to 'save space' but most often regular type in slightly smaller size is more legible.

Of course condensed type can be a good choice and part of good design but it can't be done suuccesfully with these kind of engineered fonts.

> PS - I've noticed that Wikipedia uses a reasonably narrow font for
> their main article headings, but (a) I can't work out what font-family

It seems to me that Wikipedia use only 'sans-serif'. All the headings in my browser (Opera/Win) use Arial, the default font for sans-serif. And if I change it to for example Fixedsys all text will change except input fields.

Jukka

Andreas Höfeld

unread,
Mar 4, 2008, 3:45:28 AM3/4/08
to
Nachricht von Armadillo:

>> I define my html headings and headers using:
>> font-family: "Arial Narrow", "Helvetica Narrow", Arial, Helvetica,
>> sans-serif
>
>> Is there a reasonably narrow headline (sans serif) font that comes as
>> standard with Linux which I could use as a substitute for Arial Narrow/
>> Helvetica Narrow?
>
> I don't know a substitute, instead I'll suggest that you don't use Arial
> Narrow or Helvetica Narrow at all. These are not 'real' designs but just
> numerically squeezed versions resulting distorted characters in which for
> example horizontal stems are thicker than vertical stems.

I don't think that's a real problem in on-screen display with letter
stems of 1 or 2 px ;-)
My objection against Arial narrow is that it is not installed even on
quite a few Windows machines. Web design should not rely on any fonts
being installed on other computers. If you want a document to appear in
a particular font, use pdf or $%§*!# Flash.

Andreas


Armadillo

unread,
Mar 4, 2008, 4:06:57 AM3/4/08
to

> > Narrow or Helvetica Narrow at all. These are not 'real' designs but
> just
>> numerically squeezed versions resulting distorted characters in which
>> for
>> example horizontal stems are thicker than vertical stems.
>
> I don't think that's a real problem in on-screen display with letter
> stems of 1 or 2 px ;-)

In small sizes yes, and if the pixels eventually land in the same places
why to use narrow version at all.

In homeopathy it is said that water molecules retain memory information of
the other moluceules they been in contact with. Similarily a typeface that
has been numerically condensed retain information of distortion in pixel
form even when the difference is no longer visible. ;-)

Jukka

Andreas Höfeld

unread,
Mar 4, 2008, 6:35:31 PM3/4/08
to
Nachricht von Armadillo:

>
>> > Narrow or Helvetica Narrow at all. These are not 'real' designs but
>> just
>>> numerically squeezed versions resulting distorted characters in which
>>> for
>>> example horizontal stems are thicker than vertical stems.
>>
>> I don't think that's a real problem in on-screen display with letter
>> stems of 1 or 2 px ;-)
>
> In small sizes yes, and if the pixels eventually land in the same places
> why to use narrow version at all.


Oops, I meant 1-2 px width not height :-)

Andreas

Armadillo

unread,
Mar 5, 2008, 2:43:11 AM3/5/08
to

>>> I don't think that's a real problem in on-screen display with letter
>>> stems of 1 or 2 px ;-)
>> In small sizes yes, and if the pixels eventually land in the same
>> places why to use narrow version at all.
>
> Oops, I meant 1-2 px width not height :-)

Did not think you meant height.

Just made a sample page and in small sizes like 10-12px Arial Narrow need
to be 1 pixel bigger to appear as big as regular version and still it
looks very cluttered. In bigger sizes like 24px character distortion is
clearly visible.

Arial Narrow is more condensed than I remembered and it looks really bad.

Jukka

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 5, 2008, 6:07:33 AM3/5/08
to

On 4 Mar, 06:47, Armadillo <re...@newsgroup.pls> wrote:

> I don't know a substitute, instead I'll suggest that you don't use Arial Narrow or Helvetica Narrow at all. These are not 'real' designs but just numerically squeezed versions resulting distorted characters in which for example horizontal stems are thicker than vertical stems.

That misses the point, which is that I'm looking for a series of
condensed fonts that *between them* will work on all systems. The
beauty of css is that one doesn't ever have to rely on a single font
being installed in order for a page to display properly - a style can
be defined as:

p {font-family: "fontA", fontB, fontC, fontD, fontE, fontF}

and then as long as a given computer has *any* of those fonts
installed, the webpage will work properly.

The reason I chose Arial Narrow to be one of the list of fonts used to
define by heading and header styles is simply that it is the most
widely installed condensed font out there; and Helvetica Narrow is
quite widely installed on Macs - but these are only two fonts in what
can, if necessary, be a very long list. As long as all or almost all
systems display *some* condensed font or other then I'll be a happy
bunny. What I don't want is for them to display a wide-pitch font. And
for some reason, according to my browsershots.org screen captures,
Linux machines display an extremely wide-pitched font indeed, far
wider even than Arial.


> Often condensed type is used to 'save space' but most often regular type in slightly smaller size is more legible.

Not to save space, but to look elegant. As for legibility, we're
talking only about headlines here, not about body text, and Arial
Narrow is perfectly legible at large point sizes.

I admit Arial Narrow looks much less elegant that (say) Gill Sans
Condensed or Frutiger Condensed, but it looks more elegant *in a
headline* in my personal opinion than Arial or Helvetica do, and GSC
and FC are not widely installed and the former is.

The vast majority of professionally produced brochures I have seen use
condensed fonts for headlines, and they don't do so in order to save
space.


> Of course condensed type can be a good choice and part of good design but it can't be done successfully with these kind of engineered fonts.

Please could you suggest some other way of achieving my objective
then? (Not in a PDF, in a webpage).


> It seems to me that Wikipedia use only 'sans-serif'. All the headings in my browser (Opera/Win) use Arial, the default font for sans-serif. And if I change it to for example Fixedsys all text will change except input fields.

So can you or can anyone work out how Wikipedia have managed to make
their headline fonts look condensed? I can't make sense of their css
files.

Dave

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 5, 2008, 6:14:25 AM3/5/08
to
Hi Andreas

On 4 Mar, 08:45, Andreas Höfeld <m...@privacy.net> wrote:

> My objection against Arial narrow is that it is not installed even on
> quite a few Windows machines. Web design should not rely on any fonts
> being installed on other computers.

Which is precisely why I am trying to find a *series" of fonts that
*between them* will work on all or at least most computers.


If you want a document to appear in
> a particular font, use pdf or $%§*!# Flash.

That's like saying if you want to have tabular data, don't ever use
html, you must only use Excel. Users don't always want to download
large pdf (or Excel) files - they frequently want to view parts of
them as web pages. So I offer users the choice of both PDF (or Excel)
*and* html versions, and they greatly appreciate having that choice.
And I am not trying to make a document appear in a particular font. I
am simply trying to make the headlines appear in a condensed (any
condensed) sans font on all systems.

Dave

Armadillo

unread,
Mar 5, 2008, 6:55:26 AM3/5/08
to

> That misses the point, which is that I'm looking for a series of
> condensed fonts that *between them* will work on all systems. The
> beauty of css is that one doesn't ever have to rely on a single font
> being installed in order for a page to display properly - a style can
> be defined as:
>
> p {font-family: "fontA", fontB, fontC, fontD, fontE, fontF}

I know but the truth is only fonts one can expect users to have are Arial,
Helvetica and Times. If the the choices are very different the site will
be just a big mess. So best thing to do is to bite the bullet and use
'default' fonts. Typography, also as html and css is much more than just a
choice of a typeface. A know a designer who use mainly Times and Helvetica
- with very good results.

> Not to save space, but to look elegant. As for legibility, we're
> talking only about headlines here, not about body text, and Arial
> Narrow is perfectly legible at large point sizes.

There is nothing elegant in Arial Narrow and it is not perfectly legible.
It is too tightly spaced and it really is just legible enough.

> The vast majority of professionally produced brochures I have seen use
> condensed fonts for headlines, and they don't do so in order to save
> space.

There is a major difference between typefaces that are designed as
condensed and typefaces that are just numerically condensed from regular
version. Typography is like coocking, you don't necessarily know how the
food is made but it can taste really bad. As far as Arial Narrow goes the
ingredients are not very good to begin with and it is well overcoocked.

>> Of course condensed type can be a good choice and part of good design
>> but it can't be done successfully with these kind of engineered fonts.
>
> Please could you suggest some other way of achieving my objective
> then? (Not in a PDF, in a webpage).

Unfortunately not in a web page, unless you use images. But see above.

> So can you or can anyone work out how Wikipedia have managed to make
> their headline fonts look condensed? I can't make sense of their css
> files.

It is not the css it is probably your browser settings. Only font
definition I could find was 'sans-serif' in the 'body' definiton.

Jukka

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 5, 2008, 7:26:23 AM3/5/08
to
On 5 Mar, 11:55, Armadillo <re...@newsgroup.pls> wrote:


> > So can you or can anyone work out how Wikipedia have managed to make
> > their headline fonts look condensed? I can't make sense of their css
> > files.
>
> It is not the css it is probably your browser settings. Only font
> definition I could find was 'sans-serif' in the 'body' definiton.
>
> Jukka

My browser settings have no Wikipedia-specific settings in them. The
Wikipedia headilines look far narrower on my system than the headlines
in any other web site I've looked at other than my own (and my own
only looks narrow on systems that have either Arial Narrow or
Helvetica Condensed installed).

WRT the rest of your post we'll have to agree to disagree.

Dave

Armadillo

unread,
Mar 5, 2008, 8:14:27 AM3/5/08
to

>> > So can you or can anyone work out how Wikipedia have managed to make
>> > their headline fonts look condensed? I can't make sense of their css
>> > files.
>>
>> It is not the css it is probably your browser settings. Only font
>> definition I could find was 'sans-serif' in the 'body' definiton.

> My browser settings have no Wikipedia-specific settings in them. The


> Wikipedia headilines look far narrower on my system than the headlines
> in any other web site I've looked at other than my own (and my own
> only looks narrow on systems that have either Arial Narrow or
> Helvetica Condensed installed).

This is strange. I had both Helvetica Narroow and Arial Narrow installed
but Opera, Explorer nor Firefox (Vista) use it in headlines. So I still
say it is the browser not css.

> WRT the rest of your post we'll have to agree to disagree.

So don't expect me to visit your site anytime soon. ;-)

Jukka

PS Now I'll quickly uninstall both before I puke.

Armadillo

unread,
Mar 5, 2008, 8:36:51 AM3/5/08
to

> but Opera, Explorer nor Firefox (Vista) use it in headlines. So I still

but Opera, Explorer nor Firefox (Vista) don't use it in headlines. So I
still

Jukka

Andreas Prilop

unread,
Mar 5, 2008, 10:57:12 AM3/5/08
to
On Wed, 5 Mar 2008, Dave Rado wrote:

> and Helvetica Narrow is quite widely installed on Macs

Helvetica Narrow is built into every PostScript printer. So everyone
with a PostScript printer driver should have access to Helvetica
Narrow.

> but these are only two fonts in what can, if necessary,
> be a very long list.

I suggest
Helvetica Condensed, Helvetica Narrow, Arial Narrow
in this order.

--
Solipsists of the world - unite!

Andreas Prilop

unread,
Mar 5, 2008, 11:02:47 AM3/5/08
to
On Wed, 5 Mar 2008, Armadillo wrote:

> There is nothing elegant in Arial Narrow and it is not perfectly legible.

You could set

Helvetica, Arial

in the *screen* stylesheet but

"Helvetica Condensed", "Helvetica Narrow", "Arial Narrow"

in the *print* stylesheet.
http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/css/style-html.html#external

--
Top-posting.
What's the most irritating thing on Usenet?

Character

unread,
Mar 5, 2008, 11:21:17 AM3/5/08
to
Andreas Prilop wrote:

> On Wed, 5 Mar 2008, Dave Rado wrote:
>
>
>>and Helvetica Narrow is quite widely installed on Macs
>
>
> Helvetica Narrow is built into every PostScript printer. So everyone
> with a PostScript printer driver should have access to Helvetica
> Narrow.
>

99.99% of Web readers don't have postscript printers or drivers (and
probably wouldn't know it if they did!)

And a question ... even if they do have a postscript-capable printer,
with installed drivers, will their browsers be able to use those fonts
if they haven't been installed on the pc? Guess that was a rhetorical
question. MSWord is the only product I know of whose on-screen display
is dependent on what printers are installed - not even the other apps
in MSOffice.

- Ch.

Armadillo

unread,
Mar 5, 2008, 11:26:21 AM3/5/08
to

>> and Helvetica Narrow is quite widely installed on Macs
>
> Helvetica Narrow is built into every PostScript printer. So everyone
> with a PostScript printer driver should have access to Helvetica
> Narrow.

It is in the printer allright but usually it is not included as a font.

Helvetica Narrow is usually a Type1 font which is made over 20 years ago
by writing postscript code rather than using a font editor. Therefore the
character outlines are not too good. In fact the font includes regular
version outlines and a parameter for condensing.

Although Type1 rendering on screen has improved I still wouldn't use Type1
fonts as a choice in css.

Jukka

Andreas Prilop

unread,
Mar 5, 2008, 11:34:42 AM3/5/08
to
On Wed, 5 Mar 2008, Armadillo wrote:

> Helvetica Narrow is usually a Type1 font which is made over 20 years ago
> by writing postscript code rather than using a font editor.

Since System 7, Helvetica Narrow has been included as TrueType fonts
with every Macintosh.

--
I used to believe in reincarnation in a former life.

Andreas Prilop

unread,
Mar 5, 2008, 11:38:47 AM3/5/08
to
On Wed, 5 Mar 2008, Character wrote:

> And a question ... even if they do have a postscript-capable printer, with
> installed drivers, will their browsers be able to use those fonts if they
> haven't been installed on the pc?

That depends on the operating system. On MS Windows, I think Arial Narrow
will be used for screen display.

As I wrote earlier, there is probably no need at all to define
a narrow/condensed typeface for screen display. It is sufficient
to take Arial/Helvetica Narrow/Condensed in your *print* stylesheet.

--
Bugs in Internet Explorer 7
http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/ie7-bugs

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 5, 2008, 12:46:35 PM3/5/08
to
Hi Andreas

On 5 Mar, 15:57, Andreas Prilop <aprilop2...@trashmail.net> wrote:

> I suggest
> Helvetica Condensed, Helvetica Narrow, Arial Narrow
> in this order.

Many thanks.

No thoughts on what I could add to that list to catch at least some
Linux machines?

Dave

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 5, 2008, 12:47:27 PM3/5/08
to
On 5 Mar, 16:21, Character <C...@cters.bold.italic> wrote:


> 99.99% of Web readers don't have postscript printers or drivers (and
> probably wouldn't know it if they did!)

All Macs do and that's the point.

Dave

Andreas Prilop

unread,
Mar 5, 2008, 1:06:08 PM3/5/08
to
On Wed, 5 Mar 2008, Dave Rado wrote:

>> I suggest
>> Helvetica Condensed, Helvetica Narrow, Arial Narrow
>> in this order.
>

> No thoughts on what I could add to that list to catch at least some
> Linux machines?

DejaVu Sans Condensed

Armadillo

unread,
Mar 6, 2008, 5:54:54 AM3/6/08
to

>> Helvetica Narrow is usually a Type1 font which is made over 20 years ago
>> by writing postscript code rather than using a font editor.
>
> Since System 7, Helvetica Narrow has been included as TrueType fonts
> with every Macintosh.

Really? Then I guess Apple just forgot to include it in these lists. ;-)

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301332
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25710

Jukka

Andreas Prilop

unread,
Mar 6, 2008, 10:40:51 AM3/6/08
to
On Thu, 6 Mar 2008, Armadillo wrote:

>> Since System 7, Helvetica Narrow has been included as TrueType fonts
>> with every Macintosh.
>
> Really?

Yes.

> Then I guess Apple just forgot to include it in these lists. ;-)
> http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301332
> http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25710

Perhaps. Or perhaps it's part of Helvetica since Mac OS X. Or
perhaps you need to install Apple's PostScript printer driver.
At least, Helvetica Narrow is there - otherwise it couldn't
cause problems:
http://pagesfaq.blogspot.com/2007/11/helvetica-narrow-problems.html

Armadillo

unread,
Mar 7, 2008, 3:00:55 AM3/7/08
to

> Perhaps. Or perhaps it's part of Helvetica since Mac OS X. Or
> perhaps you need to install Apple's PostScript printer driver.

Basic 35 postscript fonts are sometimes installed with postscript driver
but they do not necessarly exist as actual fonts. Meaning that you can use
the 'driver fonts' in a document but the font really exists only in the
printer. On screen there may be another font using the width information.
I do not know if this is the case with OS X but it well may be the source
of some of the problems.

Jukka

Andreas Prilop

unread,
Mar 7, 2008, 10:11:31 AM3/7/08
to
On Fri, 7 Mar 2008, Armadillo wrote:

> On screen there may be another font using the width information. I do not know
> if this is the case with OS X but it well may be the source of some of the
> problems.

I don't have Mac OS X. But Helvetica Narrow used to be supplied with
Mac OS 7 - 9 as separate TrueType fonts. Perhaps it is invoked in
Mac OS X in the same way as Bold or Italic and therefore part of the
Helvetica family.

Message has been deleted

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 16, 2008, 10:39:08 AM3/16/08
to
Hi Mark

On 10 Mar, 01:38, markrobt+use...@gmail.com (Mark Roberts) wrote:

> Regarding your question on an equivalence to Helvetica Narrow, it's
> Nimbus Sans L; use the condensed variants. Look for filenames
> n019043l.pfb and n019044l.pfb in the apropriate directory (on mine,
> it's /usr/share/fonts/default/Type1).

The gist of the rest of the discussion was that no-one could find any
way to do this using css that actually works. Do you know of any way
that works in (for example) Firefox? If so please could you post your
css code that you have tested and which works?

Many thanks.

Dave

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 16, 2008, 11:27:42 AM3/16/08
to
Hi Andreas

I've tried this, thanks for the tip, but have found a weird problem
that different fonts render DejaVu Condensed completely differently
from each other. To make sure I could determine which of the
browsershot.org had the font installed, I used the following css for
the headings and headers:
{font-family: "DejaVu Sans Condensed", serif;}

Thus any machines that didn't have DVC installed would display a serif
font and I could ignore them. So the following screen captures are
definitely all from machines with DVC installed.

The following is from Netscape Navigator 9, and although it's hardly
condensed, I can live with it: http://tinyurl.com/2jo5aj.

The following is from Firefox 3, and is very wide indeed (more like
DejaVu Expanded!) - I can't live with this one: http://tinyurl.com/2rau28.
(FF 2 is better, though).

Similarly, Iceape 1.1.8 displays what looks like DejaVu Ultra-Wide, as
do several other browsersw - see: http://tinyurl.com/3bobp5.

Any idea why? This problem never occurs in Windows or the Mac. And is
there any way of making the browsers that display DejaVu Ultra-Wide
when you ask them to display DejaVu Condensed do what they're told?

I get the same problem with Arial and Helvetica - those Linux machines
that have them installed display them with varying widths and some
display them very wide indeed.

Dave

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 16, 2008, 11:30:14 AM3/16/08
to
Typo in previous message - for "different fonts render DejaVu
Condensed completely differently", read "different browsers render
DejaVu Condensed completely differently".

As I say I don't get similar problems under Windows or Mac OS.

Dave

Character

unread,
Mar 16, 2008, 2:07:09 PM3/16/08
to
Dave Rado wrote:

I think that Tinyurl is out of commission. I hope it's temporary.

Your URL's show up as "document has no data", and I've been getting a
404 when I try to create one.

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 17, 2008, 11:36:32 AM3/17/08
to
HI Character

On 16 Mar, 18:07, Character <C...@cters.bold.italic> wrote:

> I think that Tinyurl is out of commission. I hope it's temporary.
>
> Your URL's show up as "document has no data", and I've been getting a
> 404 when I try to create one.

The tinyurl links work when I click on them (in Google Groups), but if
it still isn't working for you you could try turning on the tinyurl
preview (on the tinyurl website) to make sure that there isn't a
problem with for example the interface you're using sending an invalid
url when you click on a link, such as sending "http://tinyurl.com/
3bobp5." instead of "http://tinyurl.com/3bobp5" (some interfaces do
treat punctuation following a url as if were part of the url, which
can cause problems).

Dave

Andreas Prilop

unread,
Mar 18, 2008, 1:06:03 PM3/18/08
to
On Sun, 16 Mar 2008, Dave Rado wrote:

> http://tinyurl.com/2jo5aj.
> http://tinyurl.com/2rau28.
> http://tinyurl.com/3bobp5.

Please do not write a period at the end of the URL!
A period is a legal character in URLs. How could any program
know what you mean?

I think the difference is due to different font size.

> I get the same problem with Arial and Helvetica - those Linux machines
> that have them installed display them with varying widths and some
> display them very wide indeed.

Perhaps different font size, too.

Andreas Prilop

unread,
Mar 18, 2008, 1:41:36 PM3/18/08
to
On Sun, 16 Mar 2008, Dave Rado wrote:

> Any idea why? This problem never occurs in Windows or the Mac. And is
> there any way of making the browsers that display DejaVu Ultra-Wide
> when you ask them to display DejaVu Condensed do what they're told?

There is no "DejaVu Ultra-Wide" - test your DejaVus here:
http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/temp/morestyles.html
"Condensed" is only a wee bit condensed on the one Linux I tested.

> I get the same problem with Arial and Helvetica - those Linux machines
> that have them installed display them with varying widths and some
> display them very wide indeed.

Make sure you have the same default font size everywhere.

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 18, 2008, 6:29:32 PM3/18/08
to
Hi Andreas

On 18 Mar, 17:06, Andreas Prilop <aprilop2...@trashmail.net> wrote:

> I think the difference is due to different font size.

I'm not sure what you mean - why is it displaying a different font-
size from the font-size specified in the css file?

Dave

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 18, 2008, 6:32:40 PM3/18/08
to
Hi Andreas

On 18 Mar, 17:41, Andreas Prilop <aprilop2...@trashmail.net> wrote:

> Make sure you have the same default font size everywhere.

Again, I'm not sure what you mean. The font size for all my paragraph
styles are specified in my css file. The text displays at the correct
size on all Windows and Mac browsers but not on some Linux ones (or at
least it displays at the correct character height but not the correct
character width or spacing). I don't understand why some Linux boxes
should ignore the font-size specified in the css?

Dave

Andreas Prilop

unread,
Mar 19, 2008, 5:03:46 AM3/19/08
to
On Tue, 18 Mar 2008, Dave Rado wrote:

>> Make sure you have the same default font size everywhere.
>
> Again, I'm not sure what you mean.

Define the same default font size in your browsers.

> The font size for all my paragraph styles are specified ...

Browsers let the readers ignore such settings or let them specify
a minimal font size.

> ... in my css file.

Address (URL)?

Message has been deleted

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 26, 2008, 8:22:02 PM3/26/08
to
Hi Andreas

On 19 Mar, 09:03, Andreas Prilop <aprilop2...@trashmail.net> wrote:

> > ... in my css file.
>
> Address (URL)?

A mock-up containing the css and html in a single file is at:
http://tinyurl.com/2odtbg .

In Navigator 9 the headings and headers look like this: http://tinyurl.com/35mrrb
.

In Iceape they look far wider: http://tinyurl.com/3bvc6w .

I get similar results using Arial/Helvetica, but only on Linux
machines - on the Windows and Mac machines at browsershots.org the
page displays identically in all browsers.

Maybe the explanation is that Linux users are much more prone to
overriding style sheets with their own ones than Windows or Mac users
are?

Dave

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 26, 2008, 8:27:47 PM3/26/08
to
Hi Andreas

On 18 Mar, 17:06, Andreas Prilop <aprilop2...@trashmail.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Mar 2008, Dave Rado wrote:
> >http://tinyurl.com/2jo5aj.
> >http://tinyurl.com/2rau28.
> >http://tinyurl.com/3bobp5.
>
> Please do not write a period at the end of the URL!
> A period is a legal character in URLs. How could any program
> know what you mean?

A period is not a legal character at the end of a url, only in the
middle of one. Clicking on any of the above three links works in
Google Groups, in Outlook Express and in Thunderbird (it takes you to
the relevant web pages). However, given that some newsgroup interfaces
are less intelligent than those three, I'll try to remember to put a
space between the urls I post and the punctuation that follows them
when posting on usenet newsgroups from now on, although in my opinion
this shouldn't really be necessary.

Dave

Zundark

unread,
Mar 27, 2008, 6:44:22 AM3/27/08
to
Dave Rado wrote:

> A period is not a legal character at the end of a url,

Yes it is. Nothing in the syntax precludes this, and
RFC 3986 even gives a couple of examples of this form.

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 27, 2008, 9:17:43 AM3/27/08
to

The fact remains that Google Groups, Outlook Express and Thunderbird
all treat a url followed by a period as a url followed by a period
rather than as a url including a period; as does Acrobat, and all
wordprocessors that I know ... I've certainly never been to a live web
page whose url ends with a period.

Dave

Andreas Prilop

unread,
Mar 27, 2008, 10:28:42 AM3/27/08
to
On Wed, 26 Mar 2008, Dave Rado wrote:

> A mock-up containing the css and html in a single file is at:
> http://tinyurl.com/2odtbg

> http://tinyurl.com/35mrrb
> http://tinyurl.com/3bvc6w

Could you please test my page
http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/temp/morestyles.html
so that we can see whether there is any difference among the
various fonts of the DejaVu family?

Andreas Prilop

unread,
Mar 27, 2008, 10:31:56 AM3/27/08
to
On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, Dave Rado wrote:

> The fact remains that Google Groups, Outlook Express and Thunderbird
> all treat a url followed by a period as a url followed by a period
> rather than as a url including a period;

What does this prove? And what's next?
Comma? Semicolon? Quotation mark? Question mark? Non-ASCII letter?
Which should be (in your opinion) part of the URL and
which should not?

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 28, 2008, 12:19:18 PM3/28/08
to
On 27 Mar, 14:28, Andreas Prilop <prilop2...@trashmail.net> wrote:

> Could you please test my page
> http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/temp/morestyles.html
> so that we can see whether there is any difference among the
> various fonts of the DejaVu family?

In Netscape 9: http://tinyurl.com/2v67b6
In Iceape: http://tinyurl.com/2jdqx3

Dave

Dave Rado

unread,
Mar 28, 2008, 12:29:37 PM3/28/08
to
On 27 Mar, 14:31, Andreas Prilop <prilop2...@trashmail.net> wrote:

> Which should be (in your opinion) part of the URL and
> which should not?

My point was simply that most usenet interfaces, including Google
Groups, Outlook Express and Thunderbird, allow one to put punctuation
after a url, followed by a space, as does Acrobat and as do all word-
processing programs that I am aware of. They all treat the string
preceding punctuation that is followed by a space as a url. This isn't
a matter of opinion, it's simply a factual observation. What *is* a
matter of opinion is whether they should do so. My personal opinion is
that their doing so greatly improves readability and that is usenet
interfaces that don't behave in that way. But as I say I'll try to
remember to do so from now on.

Dave

Andreas Prilop

unread,
Mar 28, 2008, 12:35:53 PM3/28/08
to
On Fri, 28 Mar 2008, Dave Rado wrote:

>> http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/temp/morestyles.html

I have now added Arial here.

Perhaps we have an explanation to your problems.
When you compare Sans|Serif with Sans|Serif Condensed,
you see that the digit "9" of the Condensed is below
the digit "6" of the un-condensed. So these Condensed
are only a wee bit condensed.

On Windows comparing Arial and Arial Narrow, the digit "9"
of Narrow is below the digit "3" of Arial.

Whatsmore, Arial, which comes with Linux, is even more
condensed that the two DejaVu Condensed!

So you might specify "Arial" instead of "DejaVu Condensed".

Andreas Prilop

unread,
Mar 28, 2008, 12:52:57 PM3/28/08
to
On Fri, 28 Mar 2008, Dave Rado wrote:

> My point was simply that most usenet interfaces, including Google
> Groups, Outlook Express and Thunderbird, allow one to put punctuation
> after a url,

But what punctuation exactly? Certainly not a slash. How about
backslash, parentheses, colon, square brackets, etc. etc.?

Actually, some search engines (not Google) are so brain-dead
that they even include > or " as last part of the URL.
http://groups.google.com/group/de.comm.software.newsreader/msg/118c84c812384e86?
<news:Pine.GSO.4.44.050801...@s5b004.rrzn-user.uni-hannover.de>

Therefore it is certainly safer to put spaces around URLs.

Andreas Prilop

unread,
Mar 28, 2008, 1:49:58 PM3/28/08
to
On Fri, 28 Mar 2008, I wrote:

> Whatsmore, Arial, which comes with Linux, is even more
> condensed that the two DejaVu Condensed!
> So you might specify "Arial" instead of "DejaVu Condensed".

Or try "Andale Sans". How common is Andale Sans on Linux?

Andreas Höfeld

unread,
Mar 29, 2008, 10:48:39 AM3/29/08
to
Nachricht von Andreas Prilop:

> On Fri, 28 Mar 2008, I wrote:
>
>> Whatsmore, Arial, which comes with Linux, is even more
>> condensed that the two DejaVu Condensed!
>> So you might specify "Arial" instead of "DejaVu Condensed".
>
> Or try "Andale Sans". How common is Andale Sans on Linux?

About as common as StarOffice on Linux or any other OS ;-)

Andreas

Andreas Prilop

unread,
Mar 31, 2008, 11:43:21 AM3/31/08
to
On Sat, 29 Mar 2008, Andreas Höfeld wrote:

>> Or try "Andale Sans". How common is Andale Sans on Linux?
>
> About as common as StarOffice on Linux or any other OS ;-)

In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarOffice I read that
StarOffice also includes Arial Narrow. So Arial Narrow does
exist on Linux.

gregm...@gmail.com

unread,
Sep 23, 2015, 12:41:53 PM9/23/15
to
On Wednesday, March 5, 2008 at 1:06:08 PM UTC-5, Andreas Prilop wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Mar 2008, Dave Rado wrote:
>
> >> I suggest
> >> Helvetica Condensed, Helvetica Narrow, Arial Narrow
> >> in this order.
> >
> > No thoughts on what I could add to that list to catch at least some
> > Linux machines?
>
> DejaVu Sans Condensed

Thanks!
0 new messages