Why is a table not using the body font size even though I haven't set the table font size explicitly?
I have a problem whereby I have set the body font-size to 11px, but tables display font at 16px. I have no idea whats causing this - I have been over the CSS and the output (source when browsing to the page) time and time again. Setting table font-size to 11px explicitly has the desired effect, but I shouldn't need to set it anywhere apart from the body style.
I have the following CSS:
body {
font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 11px;
margin: 0px;
background-color: #E7D2B8;
color: #863F2B;
}
img.headerImg {
width: 100%;
}
.menu-strip {
float: left;
width: 20%;
}
.main-content {
float: left;
width: 80%;
}
.clear {
clear: both;
}
ul.menu {
margin: 0px;
margin-left: 10px;
padding: 0px;
list-style: none;
}
ul.menu li {
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
padding-top: 10px;
padding-bottom: 10px;
}
div.footer {
width: 60%;
margin-left: 20%;
}
ul.footer-links {
list-style: none;
}
ul.footer-links li {
float: left;
padding: 20px;
}
ul.footer-links li:last {
clear: right;
}
table {
width: 100%;
border-collapse: collapse;
}
td {
vertical-align: top;
}
...and the output is as follows:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title></title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/CustomerApp_v2/CSS/main.css" />
</head>
<body>
<div class="header">
<img class="headerImg" alt="Header image" src="/CustomerApp_v2/Images/header.png" />
</div>
<div class="menu-strip">
<ul class="menu">
<li>Home</li>
<li>Contacts
<ul class="menu">
<li>Customers</li>
<li><a href="/CustomerApp_v2/Agents/Agents.php">Agents</a></li>
<li>Artists</li>
<li>Suppliers</li>
<li>Other</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="main-content">
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<td>Code</td>
<td>Forename</td>
<td>Surname</td>
<td>Address</td>
<td>Postcode</td>
<td>Telephone</td>
<td>Fax</td>
<td>Edit</td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tfoot>
<tr>
<td colspan='7'></td>
<td><a href='/CustomerApp_v2/Agents/Edit.php'>Create</a></td>
</tr>
</tfoot>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>code4</td>
<td>James</td>
<td>Blue</td>
<td>address11<br />address24<br />address32<br />town5<br /></td>
<td>postcode4</td>
<td>fone4</td>
<td>fone2</td>
<td><a href='/CustomerApp_v2/Agents/Edit.php?ID=2'>Edit</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>code5</td>
<td>Fred</td>
<td>White</td>
<td>address13<br />address24<br />address31<br />town1<br /></td>
<td>postcode2</td>
<td>fone5</td>
<td>fone3</td>
<td><a href='/CustomerApp_v2/Agents/Edit.php?ID=1'>Edit</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div><div class="clear"></div>
<div class="footer">
<ul class="footer-links">
<li>Link 1</li>
<li>Link 2</li>
<li>Link 3</li>
<li>Link 4</li>
<li>Link 5</li>
<li>Link 6</li>
</ul>
</div>
</body>
</html>
I seriously cant see anything which could set the font-size to 16px in the table. This happens for all 3 sections (thead, tfoot, tbody). It also seems that Netbeans 6.9 will not format the table properly, but it does the rest of the document (before and after). Its almost as if there is something wrong with the table, but I can't see what. This happens in Firefox and Opera (most recent versions of both). I haven't tested it in IE because it will never be used in IE.
Answer
Are the browsers rendering in quirks mode? Apparently quirks mode recreates some legacy behavior where tables do not inherit properly: