Form Elements in Different Browsers

Below is a screen capture of how all the different font elements look in the four major browser versions when published under normal circumstances.  As you can see there are slight differences in the amount of space that each area takes up. Internet Explorer’s form elements tend to be slightly smaller than those for Netscape.  Also note that the fonts in the elements are controlled by the browser as well.

A curious feature in Netscape 4.x is the ability of the regular proportional font settings to affect the size of the text in the form elements. Additionally all local font settings also do this.  So if you include form fields in a text box and format that text box to use +3 font size, you might end up with something like this in Netscape 4.x:

As you can see this significantly alters the size that certain elements take up in the browser window!  The best defense against this sort of thing is to make sure that your form elements are not in a location (text box, or table cell) which has another font formatting applied to it other than browser default.

Unfortunately there can always be errors if the default browser font size changes, but if you are aware of the possibilities you can usually manage a design which accommodates most browser settings.

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