Size = 1 does not make a font small anymore (or was it supposed to ever do that?)

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#1

*(replacing “[” with “{” to prevent the code from hiding) *

It was a nice shortcut to instead of typing {sub} text {/sub} one could select Size command and select 1 to get a result like this:

[sub]Small text[/sub]

But now, for more than a month, you get:

A text that it is not so small when one selects Size=1

Did I imagine that size=1 was to make the size of the font small? I’m leaning to say no, because it seems other dopers thought that was the case, I saw other dopers in posts that suddenly say out loud items that were supposed to be said softly like here:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7438996&postcount=873

So what did happen? was “size=1 = small text” just a bug that got corrected?

#2

I’m viewing your post with Firefox (WinXP, SP2), and the size 1 text is smaller than the ‘small’ text, and in the link you provided the size 1 text is also nice and small.

What browser, etc., are you using?

Test? <— quite small
[sub]Test?[/sub] <-- small, but not as small as the above.

<< Abandon all hope, ye who PRESS ENTER here. >>

#3

I’m using Opera 9.00 (Beta), and your text appears smaller to me, too.

#4

Internet Explorer 6.0

Well I’ll be, I open the page now in Firefox and you are right: I can see the small text now. It is still big in IE6, to give you an idea, the font at size=1 in IE6 appears like the size=3 in Firefox:

Test

#5

IE handles the size tag wrong, if the browser’s text size is set to anything other than medium.

#6

Now that makes the noggin click… recently I had a nasty encounter with a virus or trojan and after hours of cleanup, the font size looked strange…

Sure enough, under view/text size the thing was on largest and a different font from the times roman.

Everything is ok now.

#7

Interesting. I’m using Safari, and in Nightsong’s example, the first (quite small) is no different than the normal text, but, the sub tag, (small, but not…) is smaller.

I noticed about a month ago that the size=1 tag no longer worked for me. So, I just use [sub]sub tags[/sub]

#8

The size 1 font also appears larger in Firefox depending on your default settings.