Learning Web App Development

by Semmy Purewal

fixed vs relative font-size keywords

page 75

04 Jan 2015

On page 75, there is a discussion about relative vs. fixed font sizes. Unfortunately, I got some of the facts wrong here.

It turns out that xx-large and x-large (along with xx-small and x-small) are absolute-size keywords, not relative-size. So changing the base font-size will not change elements that are styled with those keywords.

On the other hand, larger and smaller are relative font-size keywords, and work as described. The specifics can be found [here in the W3C’s documentation] (http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/fonts.html#font-size-props).

Github user bazzaxiv was kind enough to report this and provide the reference. Thanks so much!