Supposing you select a fixed width table and have a cell that is 300 pixels wide. You write a headline in this cell, pick a font, and size it to look just right. Good for you. Too bad that headline will come up different on different systems.
Even on the same computer, there are very slight differences between how Netscape and IE render fonts. Remember the 1 in 8 visitor using a Mac? For technical reason it is beyond the scope of this article to describe, fonts are significantly smaller on a Mac than on Windows. Don't forget that your visitors can also set the default size for font display in their browser, too. If they do that, you are really starting to lose control of how fonts are displayed!
One solution is to use cascading style sheets, but that technique goes beyond the casual designer's typical experiences. The other solution is to compromise. Make sure that it looks good on the predominant platform -- currently Windows -- but don't use the smallest font possible either or your Mac visitors won't be able to read it!
4. Check Your Final on Multiple Platforms 4.在不同浏览器中检验网站
I commit to my web design clients that their site will be look good to ALL visitors. To make sure this is the case, I have an Intel computer as well as my Macintosh. I have the Intel computer configured to boot into Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Linux. I test all the pages I design in these environments. I test in both Netscape and Internet Explorer on the Windows systems and the Mac. I enlist a partner to test with Lotus Notes and AOL.
This may seem excessive, but frequently there will be some little thing that shows up in one of the platform/browser configurations that requires some minor correction. Would it be good enough if I did not make the correction? Probably. However, it is always best to make a good first impression and on the web, where you have about 5 to 7 seconds to get visitors to commit to take an actual look, every little thing counts.