Is it okay to use zoom:1 in my css classes?

Question

Whenever I find IE is displaying my website weird (different from chrome and firefox), I try putting a zoom:1 in the css class for the part that is being displayed weird. A lot of the time this fixes the problem and makes it look consistent with the other browsers.

Is it a problem to use zoom:1? I know my CSS won't validate, but are there any real world problems that can arise if I rely too much on using zoom:1?

Answer 1

The problem you are fighting with this is the IE hasLayout issue. Here is a good article and overview on which properties also trigger "having Layout" in IE.

I know of no side-effects to zoom: 1 except that it's not W3C valid. I'm pretty sure I'm using it myself in some projects.

However, there is of course the remote chance that zoom becomes a real CSS property one day - or gets used in another proprietary context like on the iPad or whatever - which could lead to things breaking.

A really clean solution, zoom is not. If at all possible, it's a good idea to give the element "Layout" in some other way as outlined in the article.

Answer 2

To the contrary, there are definitive downsides to using zoom:1, even in IE. Usually, I only include it in IE-only stylesheets, but even in the past few days I've wrestled with some layout issues because I opted to use *{zoom:1;}

-- the takeaway -- use it on a limited basis. If you only care about IE7+, you can use min-height: 1%, which has the same effect of triggering hasLayout