Sizing

Usually the larger the font size the higher the priority. Headings are all larger than the body text because they indicate what the text is about. It's important to find the headings to determine the different sections of text.It is best to avoid small type for bodies of text. Smaller than 10px or 12px is just too small for the average reader to read and will often push people away from the page. If possible, making the text bigger is the best way to go. On many sites like I Love Typography, the text size is perfect at a setting of 16px.When sizing text in CSS the font-size property is to be used. When the text is to be printed it is best to set the text in points like printers.

p { font-size: 12pt;}

For text to be read on-screen then there are two options. The text can be set in pixels where the type is set in relation to the screen resolution.

p { font-size: 14px;}

This, however, can't be done in various versions of Internet Explorer so another unit of measure is used. The best way to size text is in em's. Em's are a relative unit and act as multipliers of the text's parent element. It basically sizes text in relation to the default, or majority, size of the rest of the text. If the default text is 16pt then 1em=16pt.

p { font-size: 1em;}

The best way to understand em's is by going to The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web link that is found in my resources to the right of the page. I myself didn't start using em's until creating this blog. I used to use pixels. Now that I better understand how to use em's sizing text with CSS has become much easier, at least so far.