letter-spacing

The letter-spacing CSS property sets the spacing behavior between text characters.

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Syntax

/* Keyword value */
letter-spacing: normal;

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

/* Global values */
letter-spacing: inherit;
letter-spacing: initial;
letter-spacing: unset;

Values

normal

The normal letter spacing for the current font. Unlike a value of 0, this keyword allows the user agent to alter the space between characters in order to justify text.

<length>

Specifies extra inter-character space in addition to the default space between characters. Values may be negative, but there may be implementation-specific limits. User agents may not further increase or decrease the inter-character space in order to justify text.

Formal syntax

normal | <length>

Examples

HTML

<p class="normal">letter spacing</p>
<p class="em-wide">letter spacing</p>
<p class="em-wider">letter spacing</p>
<p class="em-tight">letter spacing</p>
<p class="px-wide">letter spacing</p>

CSS

.normal   { letter-spacing: normal; }
.em-wide  { letter-spacing: 0.4em; }
.em-wider { letter-spacing: 1em; }
.em-tight { letter-spacing: -0.05em; }
.px-wide  { letter-spacing: 6px; }

Result

Accessibility concerns

A large positive or negative letter-spacing value will make the word(s) the styling is applied to unreadable. For text styled with a very large positive value, the letters will be so far apart that the word(s) will appear like a series of individual, unconnected letters. For text styled with a very large negative value, the letters will overlap each other to the point where the word(s) may be unrecognizable.

Legible letter-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.

• MDN Understanding WCAG, Guideline 1.4 explanations
• Understanding Success Criterion 1.4.8  | W3C Understanding WCAG 2.0

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• font-kerning