HTML, choice of browser software, and your computer's own display settings. The source code for all web pages, whether Internet or Intranet, is HyperText Markup Language (HTML)--basically ASCII text with some embedded codes that represent instructions to the browser for displaying text and graphics or linking.  HTML uses a limited heirarchical set of heading tags for text, and was not originally intended to create the elaborate page displays web page designers now make.  As a result of limitations in HTML itself, designers employ "cheats" to get the displays to look the way they want them.  Some browsers can't display the "cheats" properly, which makes the screen appear scrambled.

More importantly to you, *every* browser (Netscape, Spry Mosaic, Internet Explorer, Netcruiser, AOL, etc.)  interprets the HTML code in its own way.  An <H1> heading code may look very big and bold on an older AOL browser, and only moderately large in Internet Explorer. There is no standardization among browsers as to how to display HTML code, which means the same page will look different depending on what browser you use.  To further complicate things, older browsers do not recognize some widely used HTML codes, such as tables and font colors.

Avoid most display problems by upgrading to a current version of your browser software.  (TIP:  Upgrade your browser every 3 months to the most current version.  Downloading upgrades from the company's web site is usually free.)

The third thing that controls the display is your own computer's settings.  If you have your basic screen font set large, all your web pages will also display larger type.  This means you will have different line breaks and page lengths on your screen than someone with a smaller font setting. 

Kaye Vivian, ABC
http://www.cloud9.net/~kvivian