399481 - On FF 2, Mac, .8em font-size results in 8px tall glyph with 1px anti-aliasing, rather than 9px tall glyph

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Edward Welker]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.7) Gecko/20070914 Firefox/2.0.0.7
Build Identifier: MacOS X, Firefox/2.0.0.7

While doing cross-browser testing, Firefox 2.0.0.7 running under Mac OS X resulted in an unusually small font-size.  Font-size was set to .8em, no variation in default font-family (thus rendered OS default serif).  Upon close inspection, the font glyphs were 8px tall, with 1px of anti-aliasing on top.  Testing under other current major-browsers and operating systems (including Firefox 2.0.0.7 on WindowsXP) yeilds a 9px glyph.  A one pixel difference with a font-size that small results in a BIG visual difference, and hurts readability substantially. 

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.In FF2.0.0.7 under MacOSX, open http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/pubmednew, and search for anything ("cat" for instance)
2.The link for authors, and the text under the article title are all set to .8em, default font.  These lines of text all display that behavior.
3.
Actual Results:  
.8em font-size results in a 8px tall glyph with 1px anti-aliasing on top.

Expected Results:  
.8em font-size resulting in 9px tall glyph.

This behavior has been observed on 4-5 different Macintosh computers running different versions of OSX.  Browser versions are believed to be 2.0.0.7, however, this information was not recorded.

I am more than happy to help/follow up in any way I can.

Comment 1

[Edward Welker]

Attachment: Screenshot demonstrating the problem.

Screenshot showing the bug when compared to other Mac browsers (they display the same way as all Windows browsers tested)

Comment 2

[u88484]

This bug was reported using a version of Firefox that security and stability updates are no longer provided for.  All users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to Firefox 3 by selecting 'Check for Updates' in the Help menu or by going to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/firefox.html

If you can no longer reproduce this bug using the latest Firefox 3.0.x version, please change the status of this bug to 'RESOLVED' 'WORKSFORME'.

If you can still reproduce this bug, please provide additional details to help resolve this issue.

Comment 3

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please reply if you can still reproduce this bug with Firefox 3.5.3 or later in a new profile with the latest plugins (flash, quicktime, java, etc.).