i have a textfield that is 60 in size and textarea that is 45 in cols.

In IE, both fields align nicely.

But in Firefox, the textarea is longer than the textfield.

Anyway to make them appear the same length in BOTH Firefox and IE?

try to replace your cols= 40 with
style="width:300px" or any width you want - leave rows as it is.

thanks. that totally solves the problem.

you're welcome. it works the same way with input field where 'size' should be replaced with the style mentioned above.

What is the reason for this behaviour in firefox?

What is the reason for this behaviour in firefox? column size measured in pixels differs.

it's slightly different on safari aswell although safari is closer to ff than ie