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Jan's Working with Words

    Brochure: Character Spacing

The Font dialog has a tab that you've not dealt with yet - Character Spacing (Word 2007) or Advanced (Word 2010, 2013, 2016). Sometimes it is useful to adjust the look of a font rather than find a whole new font.

Dialog: Font > Character Spacing tab (word 2007) Dialog: Font > Advanced tab (Word 2010)

The Font dialog in Word 2007 and Word 2010, 2013, 2016
Character spacing options

Character Spacing Effects

Preview - normal spacing

 Normal character spacing

The baseline is the line that the letters normally sit on.

Preview - Scaling, character sizes increased to 200% horizontally

Scaling: You can adjust the width of a font as a percentage. This changes the shapes but not the heights of the characters.

Example: Size of characters scaled to 200% of normal

Preview- character spacing expanded 5 pts.

 Spacing: You can expand the spacing so that the characters are further apart, or condense the spacing so that characters are closer together. Letters remain the same size and shape.

Example: Character spacing expanded by 5 points.

Preview - character spacing condensed 5 pts.

 Example: Character spacing condensed by half a point

Preview - characters lowered

Position: The position of a word relative to the text's baseline can be set to Normal, Raised, or Lowered. In the preview, the base line is shown by the lines on either side of the preview text. It is the line the letters sit on.

Example: Position lowered by 5 points

Preview - characters raised

 Example: Position raised by 5 points

Preview - kerningKerning: While Spacing makes the same adjustment to all characters, kerning adjusts the spacing between certain pairs of letters, for example, a capital T next to a lower case letter o. Without kerning the T will be too far away to look right in some fonts and at large font sizes. In the sample at the right, look carefully at the space between the T and the o.

The first line has a font size of 18. It's not kerned because the setting at the top says to start kerning at 24 points and above. The other lines have font sizes of 24, 28, 36, and 48. The difference becomes more noticeable as the font size increases.

Icon Step-by-Step 

Step-by-Step: Character Spacing

  Icon Step-by-Step
What you will learn: to scale text
to expand and condense text
to raise and lower text
to kern text

Start with: Icon: Class storage device Icon- Word with blank document, a blank document

  1. In a blank document, type the following: 

    1. Scaling text larger: This is my text.

    2. Scaling text smaller: This is my text.

    3. Expanding text: This is my text.

    4. Condensing text: This is my text.

    5. Raising text: This is my text.

    6. Lowering text: This is my text.

    7. Compare to - This is my text  

    8. Kerning:

    9. Text Text Text Text Text

    10. Text Text Text Text Text

    Text after typing Since you set Word to show text boundaries, there are a lot of dotted rectangles when the marks are showing.

  2. Icon: Class storage deviceSave as  
    characterspacing-Lastname-Firstname.docx      in the word project3 folder of your Class disk.
  3. In line 1, select the part  This is my text. 
  4. Open the Font dialog using the Dialog Launcher on the ribbon.
  5. Click on the Icon: Word 2007 Character Spacing or Icon: Word 2010 Icon: Word 2013 Icon: Word 2016 Advanced tab, if necessary.
  6. Change scaling to 150%.
  7. Click on OK to close the Font dialog.
  8. Document - Character SpacingContinue with each line, applying the changes to the phrase This is my text.  -
    • line 2: scaling 80%
    • line 3: expand by 10 pts.
    • line 4: condense by 0.8 pts
    • line 5: raise by 8 pts.
    • line 6: lower by 12 pts.
  9. Compare each change with the unchanged text in line 7.
  10. In lines 9 and 10 change the font size of the words to match the following sizes: 12 , 24, 36, 48, 72 pt
  11. Select the text in line 10 and open the Font dialog.
  12. Check the Kerning for fonts box and set the font size at 1 pt.
    When you click on the OK button to close the dialog, watch how the selected text moves.
  13. Create a header with your name and the date at the left and Word Project 3 at the right.
  14. Preview.
  15. Icon: Class storage deviceSave.
     [characterspacing-Lastname-Firstname.docx]
  16. Underline the words for which kerning makes a difference Print icon Print.
  17. Compare lines 9 and 10 carefully.
    For which font sizes does kerning make a noticeable difference?
    Underline them.