Adjust character and word spacing

To adjust character spacing
To adjust word spacing

You can improve text readability by adjusting the character and word spacing. When letters or words are too close together, or too far apart, they become difficult to read. CorelDRAW offers you different tools for controlling text spacing.

Character spacing

You can change the spacing between characters (also known as "letter spacing") in a block of text. For example, fully justifying a block of text may insert too much space between characters, which creates a visual imbalance. To improve readability, you can decrease the character spacing.

Increased character spacing (left) makes it difficult to read the text. Decreased character spacing (right) improves readability.

If you want to change the spacing between several characters, you need to adjust the kerning. For more information, see Kern a range of characters.

Word spacing

You can also adjust the spacing between words.

Decreased word spacing makes it difficult to discern the individual words in a paragraph (left). Increased word spacing (right) makes easier to read the paragraph.

To adjust character spacing

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1 Do one of the following:
• Using the Text tool , position the cursor in a block of text.
• Using the Pick tool , click an artistic text object or a text frame.
If the Properties docker is not open, click Window Dockers Properties.
2 In the Properties docker, click the Paragraph button to display the paragraph-related options.
3 In the Paragraph area of the Properties docker, type a value in the Character spacing box.
If you don’t see the Character spacing box, click the arrow to display more paragraph-related options.

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Values for adjusting spacing represent a percentage of the space character. The Character values range from -100 to 2000 percent. All other values range from 0 to 2000 percent.

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You can also change the character spacing proportionally by clicking the Shape tool , selecting the text object, and dragging the Interactive horizontal spacing arrow in the lower-right corner of the text object.

You can increase the character spacing in uppercase text by using capital spacing. For more information, see To change the capitalization of characters.

To adjust word spacing

Back to Top
1 Do one of the following:
• Using the Text tool , position the cursor in a block of text.
• Using the Pick tool , click an artistic text object or a text frame.
If the Properties docker is not open, click Window Dockers Properties.
2 In the Properties docker, click the Paragraph button to display the paragraph-related options.
3 In the Paragraph area of the Properties docker, type a value in the Word spacing box.
If you don’t see the Word spacing box, click the arrow to display more paragraph-related options.

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You can also change the word spacing proportionally by clicking the Shape tool , holding down Shift, selecting the text object, and dragging the Interactive horizontal spacing arrow in the lower-right corner of the text object.

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The features documented in the Help are available in the full version of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2021. Some features may not be available in this version of the product.