>
> > It seems to me that a perfectly simple and well-defined interpretation
> > of ems in table column widths is that they refer to ems at the start
> > of the table - i.e. the type size in use when <table...> was encountered.
>
> So if the sentence immediately preceding the <table> tag is
>
> ... the command to format a diskette is FORMAT A: /U.
>
> (where "FORMAT A: /U" is in monospaced Courier but the rest is in
> proportionally spaced Times) then "em" in the table that follows means
> the em of the Courier font. But if I change my mind and edit the
> sentence to read
>
> ... the command FORMAT A: /U can be used to format a diskette.
>
> then "em" in the table that follows is now suddenly the em of the
> Times font.
>
> This is "perfectly simple and well-defined"?
>
It's actually a little worse than this: It means you can never have
a table immediately follow an H1, H2, etc.
Unless we decide -- which seems completely counter intuitive -- to say
that a table's default point size is the same as a paragraph's.
Or follow the advice of so many suggestions and give up on ems. Do the
proportioning after the table is calculated.
Yuri