Why does everything seem bigger in Internet Explorer?

Question

I'm struggling with getting elements to render the same size in Internet Explorer as it does in other browsers. For instance, an image set to 500px wide takes up a significantly larger amount of screen real estate in Internet Explorer as it does in Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome, etc.

Can someone explain why 500 pixels takes up a different number of 'real' pixels depending on which browser you're using?

To elaborate, take the following HTML and CSS snippet.

CSS...

#testImg {
    width:500px;
}

HTML...

 <img id="testImg" src="...">

Why does that take up 2.5" of my monitor in Internet Explorer and 2" in other browsers?

Answer 1

Because IE is not a good browser.

Answer 2

Ehm, you don't have Zoom activated, haven't you? Look at the right bottom corner of the status bar.

Answer 3

Perhaps your Internet connection is passing through Texas...

Answer 4

Are you using a Strict doctype?

Answer 5

Most browsers implement the HTML DOM and CSS differently (though some share a rendering engine, like KHTML/WebKit). IE seems to be the most liberal about the size of a pixel, which is really annoying when you're trying to tune a layout. The situation will hopefully improve with IE8, since Microsoft seems to be making a decent effort to catch up on standards compliance and behavior of other browsers.

Answer 6

A tip: try to load the picture URL alone in Internet Explorer. If it is the same as in other browsers it must be a HTML/CSS issue, that IE renders differently.

Answer 7

Maybe you do some CSS image scaling as described in this tutorial: CSS Scale Image Html Tutorial?

Answer 8

It is probably related to your DPI setting of your windows desktop.

See this article http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc849094.aspx on the subject.

EDIT:

Excert from article:

"Scaling the Web

By default, Internet Explorer 8 will zoom the content of a Web page to match your Windows DPI Scaling settings. (This is a change from Internet Explorer 7, which did not zoom to match Windows DPI Scaling settings.) For example, if you set the DPI Scaling to 120 DPI, Internet Explorer 8 will zoom the content of a Web page by 125%, because scaling is done relative to 96 DPI, and 120/96 equals 1.25, or 125%. This is reflected in the Zoom UI in the bottom-right corner of the browser window:"

Answer 9

Did you try CTRL+SHIFT+0 to default on the default size?