word-spacing

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The word-spacing CSS property sets the length of space between words and between tags.

Try it

Syntax

css
/* Keyword value */
word-spacing: normal;

/* <length> values */
word-spacing: 3px;
word-spacing: 0.3em;

/* Global values */
word-spacing: inherit;
word-spacing: initial;
word-spacing: revert;
word-spacing: revert-layer;
word-spacing: unset;

Values

normal

The normal inter-word spacing, as defined by the current font and/or the browser.

<length>

Specifies extra spacing in addition to the intrinsic inter-word spacing defined by the font.

Accessibility

A large positive or negative word-spacing value will make the sentences the styling is applied to unreadable. For text styled with a very large positive value, the words will be so far apart that it will no longer appear to be a sentence. For text styled with a large negative value, the words will overlap each other to the point where the beginning and end of each word is unrecognizable.

Legible word-spacing must be determined on a case-by-case basis, as different font families have different character widths. There is no one value that can ensure all font families automatically maintain their legibility.

Examples

HTML

html
<div id="mozdiv1">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.</div>
<div id="mozdiv2">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.</div>

CSS

css
#mozdiv1 {
  word-spacing: 15px;
}

#mozdiv2 {
  word-spacing: 5em;
}

Formal definition

Initial valuenormal
Applies toall elements. It also applies to ::first-letter and ::first-line.
Inheritedyes
Percentagesrefer to the width of the affected glyph
Computed valueabsolute <length>
Animation typea length

Formal syntax

word-spacing = 
normal |
<length>

Specifications

Specification
CSS Text Module Level 3
# word-spacing-property
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2
# WordSpacingProperty

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
word-spacing
normal
<percentage> values
DeprecatedNon-standard
On SVG elements

Legend

Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.

Full support
Full support
No support
No support
Non-standard. Check cross-browser support before using.
Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.

See also