Font

Font End Tag: Required Support Key: 2 \| 3 \| *3.2* \| 4 \| IE1 \| M \| N1 \| O2.1	What is it? Attributes Tag Example	Parent/Content Model Tips & Tricks Browser Peculiarities
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What is it?: This Physical Style element is the most versatile of all the character formatting elements and is also the only one of this type to accept its own attributes. The element was first introduced by Netscape which allowed for the SIZE attribute to control font sizing. Internet Explorer also supports this element and added two new attributes, COLOR and FACE which control the text color and typeface respectively. Until this element was introduced, the only font display variations produced at the character level by graphical browsers were usually Bold, Italic, Underline and fixed-width fonts, or combinations of those characteristics. Addition of this element to HTML has increased the authoring possibilities greatly (although Cascading Style Sheets now offer far greater authoring possibilities.)

Common Attributes
%Core%: 2 | 3 | 3.2 | 4 | IE3 | M | N4B2 | O
%Events%: 2 | 3 | 3.2 | 4 | IE4B1 | M | N | O
%Language%: 2 | 3 | 3.2 | 4 | IE4 | M | N | O
Specific Attributes
Color
2 | 3 | 3.2 | 4 | IE1 | M | N2 | O2.1: Required? No; Description: Specifies the color of the enclosed text.; Values: RGB triplet or a special Color name
Face
2 | 3 | 3.2 | 4 | IE1 | M | N3B5 | O3: Required? No; Description:
This attribute indicates a specific font typeface to be used instead of the default typeface used in the browser. If the system that is viewing the document does not have the font typeface specified by this attribute then the browser default is used. To ease portability, multiple typefaces can be specified in the attribute value separated by commas. It will check for availability starting from the style name on the left, working its way right.; Values:
Comma separated list of font names. If the font name contains spaces, the whole name should be embedded in single quotes (the ' character.)
Point-size
2 | 3 | 3.2 | 4 | IE | M | N4B5 | O: Required? No; Description:
This new Netscape attribute is an alternate method of specifying the size of text content. It allows for a richer range of font sizes than the static 7 level scale used by the SIZE attribute. Documentation does not specify what should happen if BOTH SIZE and POINT-SIZE attributes are present.; Values:
Integers representing font point size
Size
2 | 3 | 3.2 | 4 | IE1 | M | N1 | O2.1: Required? No; Description:
This controls the size of text contained in the font tag.; Values:
Values are integers which represent absolute values in the size range from 1 (smallest) to 7 (largest). Values can also be specified relative to the current BASEFONT value (default usually being 3) by preceding an integer value with a '+' or '-' symbol.

Example: Font SIZE relative: <font SIZE="+2">text</font>
Font SIZE absolute: <font SIZE=6>text</font>
Font POINT-SIZE:   <font POINT-SIZE=20>text</font>
Font COLOR:          <font COLOR="#00FF00">text</font>
Font FACE:              <font FACE="Arial,'Times New Roman',System">text</font>

Parent Model: %In-line Parent% | %Block Parent%
Content Model: %In-line Content%

Tips & Tricks

General

The FONT element should behave as any other character formatting element would, but because its behavior is an expanded set over other elements like it, its behavior can not be assumed to be as consistent as other character elements on ANY browser.
FONT characteristics can be applied and mixed within Heading levels to provide further visual clarification between headings in addition to system default heading differences. Doing this will still preserve the semantic differences between headings.

Color

The COLOR attribute offers a GREAT alternative way to create visually distinct text/section markers in long runs of text. These documents for example make frequent use of this attribute.
There has been an interesting progression of support for applying FONT COLOR to hyperlink elements. Early behavior of the browsers that support this attribute (which has since changed) was that it generally had no effect on the hyperlink color. This may have been to ensure a consistent visual scheme to identify the links. See the 'Browser Peculiarities section below for more details. (Note: The use of Cascading Style Sheets in supporting browsers can offer an easy solution to this issue as well.)
It is possible to set a passage of text to the background color. You will be hanging yourself if you do this. =)
Warning: On browsers that do not support this, all visual distinctiveness gained through applied color formatting will NOT appear. Use at your own risk.

Face

This is a tricky attribute. Because the font specified must be on the reader's system in order for the element to work, the use of this attribute is not terribly wise. The problem is that each type of platform (Macintosh, PC, UNIX, Etc.) has its own specific set of fonts.
Another reason not to use this is because authors can almost never guarantee that a given font name is on the browser's system.
Beginning in Netscape 4.0 beta 5 a consistent set of generic, cross-platform font family names are available for use in Netscape browsers for the FONT FACE element. These are the same generic names allowed by the 'font-family' CSS property:
serif | sans-serif | cursive | fantasy | monospace
There is work underway to create a common set of fonts for the web to solve this problem, but this solution will take some time to implement.

Size

Decimal values for SIZE are usually rounded, and values that are out of bounds should be set to the nearest equivalent value.
It is strange that HTML heading levels have 6 integral levels, while FONT SIZE has 7. Special attention should be paid to these differences.
Using a FONT SIZE (or other attribute) instead of a corresponding heading level to distinguish the importance of contained text is not recommended. Use the heading level elements instead.

Browser Peculiarities

A brief history of FONT COLOR and A HREF interaction behavior:
Netscape 2,3:
Coloring Hyperlinks only works if the FONT COLOR is applied INSIDE the hyperlink, and ONLY if both are INSIDE a table cell.
Internet Explorer 1, 2, 3, Netscape 4.0 Beta 1-3, Opera:
Coloring hyperlinks does not work at all.
Internet Explorer 4.0, Netscape 4.0 Beta 4+:
Coloring hyperlinks works anywhere (not just inside tables) if the FONT COLOR is applied INSIDE the hyperlink.
Netscape's POINT-SIZE attribute is curious - it appears to be an attempt to give added control over fonts similar to that allowed through CSS. One of the main reasons for CSS was to STOP the proliferation of new physical style elements and attributes created by the browsers.
A reader has reported a possible use for POINT-SIZE: Applying a 'font-size' property to the BODY element overrides all FONT SIZE attributes. The POINT-SIZE attribute appears to give control over font size back to the FONT element.
Netscape's literature for version 4.0 also mentions WEIGHT as a new valid attribute to the FONT element. This would control the boldness characteristics of text content in the same way the 'font-weight' property does in CSS - a nine level boldness scale (100-900) with '400' being the standard default. NONE of the 4.0 Netscape versions seem to actually support this though under direct experimentation. There is a possibility that this feature is related to Netscape's dynamic font technology, but I have seen no concrete evidence of that. For more information on this attribute, see Netscape's page on the topic.