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Resolving Browser Display Discrepancies Between IE and Firefox

July 17th, 2007 | Posted in Web Design, WordPress |

IE and Firefox browsers have CSS discrepanciesWhen you begin modifying your blog’s stylesheet or designing your own blog, you may notice that some elements display differently in Internet Explorer (IE) than they do in Firefox. IE is usually the problematic browser, and it’s hard to say why there are so many CSS display quirks and bugs from Microsoft. But there is a quick, easy fix around the troubling display discrepancies.

In short, you create two stylesheets, one for IE and one for Firefox and other browsers. You then add a piece of code in your header that tells to the IE browser to read the IE style sheet. The other browsers will read the other stylesheet.

To create separate stylesheets for the different browsers:

1. Duplicate your current stylesheet and change the name to something like ie7.css.

2. In your header file, locate the current call to your stylesheet. It should look something like this:

<style type="text/css" media="screen"> @import
url( <?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?> );
</style>

Delete this call to your style sheet.

3. In the place where you deleted the style sheet call, add this code instead:

<![if IE]><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
href="http://blog.com/wp-content/themes/simpla/ie7.css">
<![endif]>   

<![if !IE]><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
href="http://blog.com/wp-content/themes/simpla/style.css">
<![endif]>

4. Customize the paths to your style sheets. The first code snippet says, if the browser is IE, use the ie7.css stylesheet. The second code snippet says, if the browser is not IE, use the style.css stylesheet.

With this method, you have two style sheets to maintain, so keep this in mind when making updates. However, you’ll be able to easily adjust the styles for the troublesome IE browser.

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11 Responses to “Resolving Browser Display Discrepancies Between IE and Firefox”

  1. So I’m checking out my backlinks…

    Thanks for linking to my site. Glad you found something useful.

    I love your blog.

  2. Another handy extension for checking various aspects in IE is the Web Accessibility Toolbar, available for free from here: http://www.visionaustralia.org.au/info.aspx?page=614

  3. Thanks for the tip, Rhonda.

  4. Weekly Roundup - Week Ending June 20, 2007…

  5. Steve Thompson Says:

    Your article states “The other browsers will read the OTHER stylesheet.” This is not quite so.

    I experimented with two spreadsheets that contained simple styling - different colours for H1 and P elements. To the first (IE)stylesheet, I added another line: BODY { background-color: gray; }

    In the non-IE browser,I saw a grey background! I expected the usual white background.

    What happens is that a non-IE browser cannot under the IF lines so it runs BOTH stylesheets, one after the other.

    To make this feature work, both stylesheets must define each style. For example, if one stylesheet defines the format of an H2, the other one must too.

  6. Ahhh, good point. I’ve always defined the format for the same selectors on each stylesheet, so I’ve never had the non-IE browser pick up any property values for the IE selectors. I think I’ll play with that a bit and update my article with the new results. Thanks.

  7. [...] displays between IE and Firefox  Tom Johnson has put together a good series of tips on matching browser displays between Internet Explorer and Firefox. Although the two browsers are more standards-compliant then in the past, web designers who need to [...]

  8. [...] Resolving Browser Display Discrepancies Between IE and Firefox This is where the site tip comes from - Thanks Tom! [...]

  9. very nicely done.
    Thx,
    David

  10. very nicely done,
    Thx,
    David

  11. I have tried to change my layout, and unsuccessfully it behaves the same. So the workaround in the mean time is to click on the item menu or use Internet Explorer :( Some people have reported differences between firefox and internet explorer [Resolving Browser Display Discrepancies Between IE and Firefox

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