Tutorial 22: The Font of Foulness, Part I: Size Matters
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Relative Font Sizes using BIG and SMALL
As if the whole FONT mess wasn't enough, Netscape also came up with two elements called BIG and SMALL. BIG is exactly the same as FONT with a SIZE attribute of +1 and SMALL is the same as FONT with a SIZE attribute of -1. The analogy can be seen in the following example:
<TABLE> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="-2">Foobar -2</FONT></TD> <TD> <SMALL><SMALL> Foobar SS </SMALL></SMALL> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1">Foobar -1</FONT></TD> <TD> <SMALL> Foobar S </SMALL> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="3">Foobar 3</FONT></TD> <TD> Foobar </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="+1">Foobar +1</FONT></TD> <TD> <BIG> Foobar B </BIG> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="+2">Foobar +2</FONT></TD> <TD> <BIG><BIG> Foobar BB </BIG></BIG> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="+3">Foobar +3</FONT></TD> <TD> <BIG><BIG><BIG> Foobar BBB </BIG></BIG></BIG> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="+4">Foobar +4</FONT></TD> <TD> <BIG><BIG><BIG><BIG> Foobar BBBB </BIG></BIG></BIG></BIG> </TD> </TR> </TABLE>
| Foobar -2 | Foobar SS |
| Foobar -1 | Foobar S |
| Foobar 3 | Foobar |
| Foobar +1 | Foobar B |
| Foobar +2 | Foobar BB |
| Foobar +3 | Foobar BBB |
| Foobar +4 | Foobar BBBB |
These elements are terrible because you usually need to nest them pretty deep to get the desired effects. They are useless (since you can do the same things with FONT) and add huge amounts of clutter to your documents. Happily, You can deal with BIG and SMALL exactly as you would with FONT and relative sizes, which is what we'll do in the next section. But keep this lesson about BIG and SMALL close to your heart: Avoid them like the plague.
