The CSS3 standard includes the font-kerning property. With CSS1, a standard of 1996, the letter-spacing property (illustrated) offers some control for "kerning perception", as kerning can be simulated with non-uniform spacing between letters. There is strong kerning between the "V" and the "A" and no kerning between the "S" and the "T".Įven with no kerning control, a visually pleasing result can be achieved with some control of the space between letters. While tracking adjusts the space between characters evenly, regardless of the characters, kerning adjusts the space based on character pairs. Kerning contrasted with tracking (letter spacing): with spacing the "kerning perception" is lost. An en-space is equal to half the current point size, and an em-space is the same width as the current point size. Fixed spaces vary by size and include hair spaces, thin spaces, word spaces, en-spaces, and em-spaces. Letter spacing may also refer to the insertion of fixed spaces, as was commonly done in hand-set metal type to achieve letter spacing.
Therefore, in QuarkXPress, a tracking setting of 3 reduces the visual density of the text noticeably, but in InDesign a tracking setting of 3 is barely noticeable. QuarkXPress uses units of 1/200 of an em, and Adobe InDesign uses 1/1000 of an em. In modern digital page-layout software, high-end applications all use relative measurements proportional to the size of the type. In the days of machine-implemented lead typesetting, such as Linotype machines and the Monotype System, letter spacing had to be uniform. Digital type does allow for negative sidebearings, which were uncommon in metal type because of the difficulty in cutting a " kern". Most systems have the default letter spacing at zero and instead use the character widths and kerning information built into the font itself.Īlthough digital type sets tighter than metal type on average, this results primarily from the availability of kerning. Word processing and desktop publishing programs for personal computers, such as LibreOffice Writer, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Publisher, WordPerfect, QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign, Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Photoshop, use differing methods of adjusting letter spacing. Printer and type designer Frederic Goudy stated that "Men who would letterspace blackletter would steal sheep." Goudy's statement inspired the title of the book Stop Stealing Sheep, an introduction to typography. It was also used for very short phrases set in capital letters or small caps to prevent the phrases from appearing too black compared to the rest of the page.
Despite the cost, letter spacing was used in print advertising and book publishing.
Letter spacing required hand insertion of copper (a half-point), brass (one point), and printer's "lead" (two points) spaces between individual pieces of type or between matrices. Some publishers and typesetters avoided letter spacing because it was costly in materials and labor. In the days of hot metal typesetting, letter spacing required adding horizontal space between letters of words set in metal type in increments of a minimum of a half-point. Tracking can similarly go in either direction, but with metal type, one could make groups of letters only farther apart (positive spacing). Digital kerning could go in either direction. A kern could therefore only bring letters closer together (negative spacing). Historically, with metal type, a kern meant having a letter stick out beyond the metal slug to which it was attached, or having part of the body of the slug cut off to allow letters to overlap. Letter spacing is distinct from kerning, which adjusts the spacing of particular pairs of adjacent characters such as "7." which would appear to be badly spaced if left unadjusted. In typography, letter spacing, character spacing or tracking is an optically consistent adjustment to the space between letters to change the visual density of a line or block of text.
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