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Information about Letter Spacing

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Examples or headline letter-spacing
In typography, letter-spacing, also called tracking, refers to the amount of space between a group of letters to affect density in a line or block of text. Since the advent of personal computers the term tracking is frequently used. In professional typography and graphic design the term letter-spacing is more commonly used.

Letter-spacing/tracking can be confused with kerning. Letter-spacing refers to the overall spacing of a word or block of text affecting its overall density and texture. Kerning is a term applied specifically to the adjustment of spacing of two particular characters to correct visually uneven spacing.

Letter-spacing adjustments are frequently used in news design. The speed with which pages must be built on deadline does not usually leave time to rewrite paragraphs that end in split words or that create orphans or widows. Letter-spacing is increased or decreased by modest (usually unnoticeable) amounts to fix these unattractive situations.

Varying systems of letter-spacing

Personal computer based applications including MS Word, Adobe Illustrator, QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign, and Adobe Photoshop, use differing, non-standard systems of adding or subtracting letter-spacing. What is common to most systems is that the default setting of letter-spacing or tracking is tight in comparison to handset letterpress or cast metal type. In QuarkXPress a letter-space/tracking setting of 3 opens text measurably, a setting of 5 begins to affect the appearance of metal type. However in the competing Adobe layout software product InDesign, a letter-space/tracking setting of 3 would be barely noticeable.

Letter-spacing and legibility

The amount of letter-spacing in text can affect legibility. Tight letter-spacing, particularly in text sizes can diminish legibility. The addition of minimal letter-spacing can often increase the legibility, and readability. Added whitespace around the characters allows the individual characters to emerge and be recognized more quickly. (However, addition of space to the point that individual letters become isolated rather than simply easily identifiable destroys legibility and readability. Words are often identified by their shape as well as by the individual letters.) As reading with phonetic writing systems is based in part on word shape recognition, part on context, and with unfamiliar words, on phonetic pronunciation, recognition of individual characters can be aided by slightly increased letter-spacing.

Letter-spacing with fixed spaces

Letter-spacing may also refer to the insertion of a fixed space. This is a more mechanical method which relies less upon spacing and kerning tables resident in each typeface and accessed and used when letterspacing is applied universally. Fixed spaces include a wordspace, en-space, and em-space. An en-space and em-space measure approximately the width of an uppercase character N or M in the typeface being used. Fixed spaces are sometimes inserted between capitals and small capitals.

Letter-spacing’s effect on message

The amount of letter-spacing can affect how text is perceived. Tight default letter-spacing, or minus letter-spacing, in text not only can reduce the legibility and readability of text, it can trigger a cultural association that tight letter-spacing is associated with advertising and therefore more subjective – the equivalent of a fast-talking car salesman. Conversely, the increase of letter-spacing in text (to an extent) increases legibility, and the cultural association is of a more objective typographic voice.

"Wide tracking" of text, beyond relaxed book composition, often looks affected and earned the epithet of Frederic Goudy, "Any man who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep."

Until the advent of phototypesetting, the term "letterspacing" referred strictly to the adding of space between the individual letters of words set in metal type, in increments of a minimum of ½ point.

Letterspacing as such was expensive, involving the hand insertion of copper (½ pt.), brass (1 pt.), and printer's "lead" (2 pt.) spaces between individual pieces of type or between matrices on linecasting machines such as the Ludlow Typograph and the Linotype. As such, it was studiously avoided by compositors, as adding nothing more than time to an already laborious task.

The only exceptions were in advertising type or, in book work, in very short phrases in capitals or small capitals, to keep the phrases from being too visually black compared to the rest of the typographic composition.

References

  • Bringhurst, Robert. The Elements of Typographic Style. Hartley & Marks: 1992. ISBN 0-88179-033-8.
  • Kane, John. A type primer. Prentice Hall: 2002. ISBN 013099071X.
  • Lupton, Ellen. Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students. Princeton Architectural Press: 2007. ISBN 978-1568984483).
  • Spiekermann, Erik. Stop Stealing Sheep & Find out how type works. Adobe Press: 2002. ISBN 0201703394.

See Also

Kerning

External links

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Typography terminology
PagePagination Recto Verso Margin Column Canons of page construction
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Lowercase 'a' in Adobe Caslon
ParagraphWidows and orphans Leading River Baseline Median Alignment Justification
CharacterLigature Letter-spacing Kerning Majuscule Minuscule Initial x-height Ascender Descender Diacritics Counter Subscript Superscript
StyleSerif Italic Slab serif Sans-serif Blackletter Script Dingbat
PunctuationHanging punctuation Hyphenation Curly quotes En dash Em dash
TypesettingType design Type foundry Movable type Calligraphy Phototypesetting Letterpress Typeface Font Computer font Point Pica Cicero Em En Lorem ipsum Hamburgefonts Punchcutting
Character encoding Rasterization Hinting
Typography is the art and techniques of type design, modifying type glyphs, and arranging type. Type glyphs (characters) are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques.
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Letter can mean:
  • Letter (alphabet), a grapheme, part of an alphabet, abjad, abugida, or syllabary
  • Letter, correspondence, a written message
  • Letter (paper size), the letter-size paper
  • Letters can also mean literature, as in arts and letters

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kerning, or less commonly, mortising (referring to the process of physically removing material from the cast character), is the process of adjusting letter spacing in a proportional font.
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News design is the process of arranging material on a newspaper page, according to editorial and graphical guidelines and goals. Main editorial goals include the ordering of news stories by order of importance, while graphical considerations include readability and balanced,
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In typesetting, widow refers to the final line of a paragraph that falls at the top the following page of text, separated from the remainder of the paragraph on the previous page. The term can also be used to refer simply to an uncomfortably short (e.g.
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In typesetting, widow refers to the final line of a paragraph that falls at the top the following page of text, separated from the remainder of the paragraph on the previous page. The term can also be used to refer simply to an uncomfortably short (e.g.
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Frederic W. Goudy (1865–1947) was a prolific American type designer whose fonts include Copperplate Gothic, Kennerley, and Goudy Old Style. He also designed, in 1938, University of California Oldstyle, for the sole proprietary use of the University of California Press.
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Phototypesetting is a method of setting type, rendered obsolete with the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publishing software, that uses a photographic process to generate columns of type on a scroll of photographic paper.
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matrix (often abbreviated to "mat") is a mould for casting the letters known as sorts used in letterpress printing.

In letterpress typography the matrix of one letter is inserted into the bottom of a hand mould, the mould is locked and molten type metal is poured into a
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A Ludlow Typograph is a hot metal typesetting system used in letterpress printing. The device casts bars, or slugs of type, out of type metal primarily consisting of lead. These slugs are used for the actual printing, and then are melted down and recycled on the spot.
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Linotype machine, pronounced "Line-O-Type," ['laɪnəˌtaɪp]) uses a keyboard consisting of 91 keys to create an entire line of metal type at once, hence a line of type.
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This article is about visual effects. For the process of combining several motions, see compositing (democracy). For the technique of compositing typeset by hand, see Typesetting.

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Capital letters or majuscules (in the Roman alphabet: A, B, C, D, ...) are one type of case in a writing system. Capital letters (also simply called capitals or caps) are also known as upper case
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small caps (short for small capitals) are uppercase (capital) characters that are printed in a smaller size than normal uppercase characters of the same font.
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kerning, or less commonly, mortising (referring to the process of physically removing material from the cast character), is the process of adjusting letter spacing in a proportional font.
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Typography is the art and techniques of type design, modifying type glyphs, and arranging type. Type glyphs (characters) are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques.
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page is one side of a leaf of paper. It can be used as a measurement of documenting or recording quantity ("that topic covers twelve pages").

The page in typography


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Pagination is the system by which the information on a newspaper, bookpage, manuscript, or otherwise handwritten or printed document are laid out.

In a strict sense of the word, it can mean the consecutive numbering to indicate the proper order of the pages, which was rarely
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recto is the right-hand page and the verso the left-hand page ("verso" can also mean to turn over in the mind) of a folded sheet or bound item, such as a book, broadsheet, or pamphlet.
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recto is the right-hand page and the verso the left-hand page ("verso" can also mean to turn over in the mind) of a folded sheet or bound item, such as a book, broadsheet, or pamphlet.
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In typography, a margin is the white space that surrounds the content of a page. The margin helps to define where a line of text begins and ends. When a page is justified the text is spread out to be flush with the left and right margins.
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column is one or more vertical blocks of text positioned on a page, separated by margins and/or rules. Columns are most commonly used to break up large bodies of text that cannot fit in a single block of text on a page.
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canons of page construction have been described by them to represent the ways in which these books may have been designed.

The notion of canons, or laws of form, of book page construction was popularized by Jan Tschichold in the mid to late twentieth century, based on the
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A paragraph is a self-contained unit of a discourse in writing dealing with a particular point or idea, or the words of an author. The start of a paragraph is indicated by beginning on a new line and ending without running to the next passage.
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In typesetting, widow refers to the final line of a paragraph that falls at the top the following page of text, separated from the remainder of the paragraph on the previous page. The term can also be used to refer simply to an uncomfortably short (e.g.
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leading (IPA [ˈlɛdɪŋ], rhymes with heading) refers to the amount of added vertical spacing between lines of type.
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In typography, rivers, or rivers of white, are visually unattractive gaps appearing to run down a paragraph of text. They often result from full text justification, although they can occur in any text justification.
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baseline is the line upon which most letters "sit" and under which descenders extend.

In the example to the right, the letter 'p' has a descender; the other letters sit on the (red) baseline.
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In typography, the mean line is the line that determines where non-ascending lowercase letters terminate in a typeface. The distance between the baseline and the mean line is called the x-height.
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In typesetting and page layout, alignment or range, is the setting of text flow or image placement relative to a page, column (measure), table cell or tab. The type alignment setting is sometimes referred to as text alignment, text justification or
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