How to set the header font size using fancyhdr package?

Question

Basically, I want the header fonts to use a different (smaller) font size than the size I set using \documentclass. What should be the option I'd be using ?

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[margin=1in, headsep=10pt]{geometry}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}

\fancyhead[L]{Personal Statement} % What other option should I use to get a custom font size ?

Answer 1

Like Werner writes :

\fontsize{<size>}{<baselineskip}\selectfont typesets whatever follows at size with a baseline skip of but I think \small is a better way because a lot of things are adjusted correctly, the definition of \small starts with :

\newcommand*\small{%   
\@setfontsize\small\@xpt\@xiipt 

example :

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[margin=1in, headsep=10pt]{geometry}
\usepackage{fancyhdr,lipsum}

\pagestyle{fancy}     
\fancyhead{} % clear all header fields
\fancyhead[L]{\fontsize{10}{12} \selectfont Personal Statement}

\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}  

Answer 2

I ran across this the other day:

\usepackage{fix-cm}
\fontsize{100}{120}\selectfont Huge text

and have used it fairly extensively in my résumé. I like it because it gave me much finer-grained control than the standard \small etc. commands.

You just place the package in the preamble as normal, then use the command wherever you want the font to be a non-standard size. Here's a working example:

\documentclass[10pt,letterpaper]{article}\usepackage{fix-cm,soul}\frenchspacing
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
\begin{center}{\fontsize{20}{22}\selectfont Alfred E. Neuman}\\\end{center}
{\fontsize{12}{12}\selectfont\textbf{\so{(111)222-3456}} \hfill {\fontsize{12}
{12}\selectfont 1313 Mockingbird Lane \\ {\fontsize{11}{11}\selectfont \textbf
{email@email.com}} \hfill Boca Raton, Florida}
\end{document}

Sorry that my code is a bit messy.