Tag letter-spacing

🔡 CSS letter-spacing: Adjusting Space Between Characters

Good typography is more than just choosing the right font. The spacing between characters — also known as tracking — can impact readability, visual balance, and overall design aesthetics. The CSS letter-spacing property allows you to fine-tune this spacing, making your text appear tighter or more open.

🧾 What is letter-spacing?

The letter-spacing property in CSS is used to increase or decrease the horizontal space between characters in text. It applies spacing uniformly across all characters of an element’s text.

🧬 Syntax

selector {
  letter-spacing: normal | <length> | inherit;
}

Value Types:

ValueDescription
normalDefault spacing defined by the font
<length>Spacing value in units like px, em, rem, etc.
inheritInherits the value from the parent element

🎯 Example Usage

1. Increase spacing (more open text)

h1 {
  letter-spacing: 2px;
}

2. Tighten text (condense character spacing)

.nav-link {
  letter-spacing: -0.5px;
}

3. Responsive and scalable spacing

p {
  letter-spacing: 0.05em;
}

Using em ensures the spacing scales relative to the font size.

🧠 How It Works

  • Positive values create more space between letters.
  • Negative values pull letters closer together.
  • Applies evenly to all characters in an element, including spaces.
  • Doesn’t affect line breaks or word spacing — just the spacing between individual letters.

🛠️ Best Practices

  • Use small values (like 0.1em or 1px) — even slight changes can have a big visual impact.
  • Adjust spacing for headings, logos, buttons, or uppercase text to improve readability or visual appeal.
  • Combine with text-transform: uppercase for a clean, modern look.
  • Use negative spacing sparingly — it can hurt legibility if overdone.
  • Test across fonts — some fonts have naturally tighter or looser spacing.

✅ Browser Support

letter-spacing is widely supported across all browsers:

  • ✅ Chrome
  • ✅ Firefox
  • ✅ Safari
  • ✅ Edge
  • ✅ Internet Explorer 6+

🔚 Conclusion

The CSS letter-spacing property is a powerful, fine-tuning tool for designers and developers. Whether you’re crafting elegant headers, accessible body text, or impactful branding, controlling character spacing helps you express style and improve readability.