Using the Font Tag

The font tag's size attribute looks something like this:

 <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="4"> 

The value in the size attribute isn't pixels, points, picas, inches, feet, millimeters, or miles. Instead, it corresponds to one of seven predefined text sizes in HTML. Normal text on a Web page displays at size 3. So this text, at size 4, is one size larger. The smallest text is size 1, and the largest is size 7, as Figure 48.1 demonstrates.

Figure 48.1. When you use the font tag, you have only seven type sizes from which to choose, numbered 1 through 7.

Another possible value for the size attribute is a relative size, where you express the size of the font as some number plus or minus the current size. A relative size looks like this in the HTML:

 <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+1"> 

or

 <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-3"> 

In the first example, the type jumps up one size from whatever size the previous text happens to be, while the type in the second example goes down three sizes. The smallest relative size is 6, and the largest is +6.