line spacing in IE5....can i resolve this?

[janice]

Hi,

on this page

the spacing between the lines of text is huge...is there any way to fix this?

Thanks for any help,

Janice

[Paul O'B]

Hi,

Yes its the styles you are using for ie7 that are confusing things. You must have a space around the universal selector otherwise ie5 gives all elements a 99% height.

<!--[if IE]> 
 <style type="text/css"> 
 * +html{height:99%;} 
 * +html .x{background: #f2fcff url(images/bgd_slice.jpg) fixed repeat-x 0 77px;}
 </style> 
 <![endif]-->

Note the space after the universal selector.

You wouldn't expect divp {color:red} to work when you meant div p {color:red} would you The universal selector replaces any element so you must have a space around it e.g. div * {} not div*{}.

[janice]

Hi Paul,

Thank you for your help with this.
This site is giving me a real headache...i can get it to display great in all browsers apart from IE5 and it's imperative that it works in IE5 as research into the end user of this site shows there's a fair percentage still using it.

We are now working with this layout as it's good in all browsers except IE5.
The problem is that IE5 is adding scrollbars on every element. do you think it's possible to rework the css so as to filter style through to IE5 and get it to work?
It doesn't matter if the fixed header and footer have to go...it just needs to work, but using the same html because we don't want to have to rework for the other browsers?
As an expert Paul, is this possible, can we get IE5 to display this page so it looks like a functional page?

Thanks you again for your help,

j

[janice]

Hi Paul,

actually i think the space on the universal selector has done it.

Ccould someone give the page a quick whirl in IE5?

[Zachnefein]

The xml prologue is throwing IE6 into quirks mode.

You can work out differences between IE5 and 6 but it seems that IE6, though it is using the porked box model from IE5 when it is in quirks mode, doesn't display everything the same with that box model.

If the pages are going to be served as text/html, drop the xml prologue to put IE into standards mode. It'll make discrepencies much easier to work out.

[Paul O'B]

Yes its working ok in ie5 because I tested it before I gave you the code

The xml prologue is throwing IE6 into quirks mode.

Yes, that's the point Ie6 needs quirks mode for that demo to work because it restricts the height to 100% regardless of padding etc.

You can do it in standards mode but its a little more complicated and relies on a different concept.

http://www.pmob.co.uk/temp/fixedlayoutexample5.htm