Word space between letters and words

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the typographic concept. For the practice of writing with spaces between words, see Interword separation.

Word spacing in typography is space between words, as contrasted with letter-spacing (space between letters of words) and sentence spacing (space between sentences). Typographers may modify the spacing of letters or words in a body of type to aid readability and copy fit, or for aesthetic effect. In web browsers and standardized digital typography, word spacing is controlled by the CSS1 word-spacing property.

History[edit]

Most classical Latin texts were written in scriptio continua, a continuous string of characters without spaces to mark word boundaries. However, some early Greek and Roman texts used interpuncts, small dots, to separate words. Word spacing begun much later. Irish scribes first started to add word spacing to texts in the late 7^th century, creating what Paul Sänger, in his book The Spaces between the Words, refers to as aerated text. By the 11^th century, scribes in northern Europe were separating Latin text canonically, that is, with spaces between words, just as we do today in standard written text.^[1]

Effect on readability[edit]

Word spacing is crucial for the written form because it illustrates the sound of speech where audible gaps or pauses take place.^[2] With typography, word spacing shows this unspoken aspect of speech.^[2] Otherwise, it would be difficult for people to read one long continuous line of letters.^[2] It is hard to determine how much spacing should be put in between words, but a good typographer is able to determine proper spacing.^[3] When text and spacing are consistent, this makes it easier to read.^[3]

Geoffrey Dowding describes the nature of spacing since the invention of printing from moveable type in the fifteenth century. Since the fifteenth century, the best work shows that text is to be read smoothly and efficiently.^[4] This is because they should always be closely spaced and “not en or em quadded!”^[4] The convention of having close spacing has lasted for two reasons: because it is easier to read than text which has wider spaces and because it looks better.^[5] For the first reason, adult readers take in words as units, and it would be unsuitable for “compositors, in settings not intended for young children, to break the eye’s track by introducing great gaps of white between words”.^[5] Words must flow smoothly into lines.^[6] For the second reason, the colour or “blackness” of the line looks better when it has close word-spacing, otherwise a widely-spaced line of text will appear grey.^[5]

Language can also be a factor that typographers would take into consideration for word spacing.^[7] For a language like Latin, “most boundaries are marked by grammatical tags, and a smaller space is therefore sufficient”.^[8] In English, the ability to read a line easily, instead of needing to make sense of it first, is also attributed by good word spacing.^[8]

Word spacing has the ability to express the meaning and idea behind a word, which typographers consider when working on design works and text.^[9] With a written piece of text, the designer has to remember to make sure they do not add too much or too little space between words; otherwise it could ruin the texture and tone.^[6]

Views

Jan Tschichold’s rule is that “spacing should be about a middle space or the thickness of an ‘i’ in the type size used. Wide spaces should be strictly avoided.”^[10] For Tschichold, it was better for words to be broken up in order avoid wide spacing.^[10] Other views on this issue of wide spacing include that it could depend on the typeface to determine word spacing, so long as it does not look overspaced.^[10] The perfect word space is affected by the circumstance; “at larger sizes, when letterfit is tightened, the spacing of words can be tightened as well.”^[8] Two other gentlemen have expressed different opinions on what the space between words should be. Aaron Burns, a typographer, suggested that the lowercase “r” was the best size for spaces between words.^[11] Edward Johnston, a noted calligrapher, supported that the lowercase “o” was the more appropriate size of measurement for spacing.^[11]

See also[edit]

• Letter spacing
• Kerning
• Leading

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• «The School of Close Spacing», excerpt from Book Typography, by Ari Rafaeli

External references[edit]

• Finer Points in the Spacing & Arrangement of Type, Geoffrey Dowding

Insert a Nonbreaking Space in Word to Keep Words or Characters Together

by Avantix Learning Team | Updated October 11, 2022

Applies to: Microsoft^® Word^® 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021 and 365 (Windows)

If you want to keep words or characters together on the same line in a Word document, you can insert nonbreaking spaces. Nonbreaking spaces can be inserted using the Insert Symbol dialog box or a keyboard shortcut.

Recommended article: 14 Timesaving Microsoft Word Selection Shortcuts to Quickly Select Text

Do you want to learn more about Microsoft Word? Check out our virtual classroom or in-person classroom Word courses >

Note: We are using a US keyboard layout but the strategies and shortcuts apply to English Canada keyboards. Keyboard shortcuts may work differently depending on your keyboard layout / language.

Inserting a nonbreaking space using a keyboard shortcut

To insert a nonbreaking space between two words or characters using a keyboard shortcut:

1. Position the cursor between the two words or characters you want to keep together (there should be no space between these characters).
2. Press Ctrl + Shift + Spacebar. Word inserts a nonbreaking space.

Inserting a nonbreaking space using Insert Symbol

To insert a nonbreaking space between two words or letters using Insert Symbol:

1. Position the cursor between the two words or characters you want to keep together (there should be no space between these characters).
2. Click the Insert tab in the Ribbon.
3. In the Symbols group, click Insert Symbol and then More Symbols in the drop-down menu. A dialog box appears.
4. Select the Special Characters tab.
5. Select Nonbreaking space and click Insert.
6. Click Close. Word inserts a nonbreaking space.

Below is the Insert Symbol dialog box with Nonbreaking Space selected:

You can also insert several other special characters using Insert Symbol.

Viewing nonbreaking spaces

To view nonbreaking spaces and other nonprinting characters:

1. Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
2. Click Show/Hide ¶ on the Home tab in the Ribbon in the Paragraph group. Nonbreaking spaces display as circles but do not print.
3. Click Show/Hide ¶ again to hide nonprinting characters.

Nonbreaking spaces can be extremely useful in Word to keep phone numbers together or specific characters that should be kept together on the same line.

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Are you searching for a more subtle way to make a heading or paragraph stand out, without using bold or enlarged text?

Expanding the characters may be the perfect solution for you.

Changing the spacing between the characters will make your text look bigger and bolder without actually increasing their size.

Alternatively, condensing the text will compress your text to fit into a smaller space. If you are trying to find a way to make your text fit on a single page, without reducing the text size to an un-readable size 8 font, reducing the space between the characters may be the solution you have been searching for.

Maybe you just want to reduce or expand the spacing between your characters to make your Word document more aesthetically pleasing.

Whatever your reason is for trying to change the spacing between your text characters in Word, in this post, we will show you how!

Changing the line spacing between letters in Microsoft Word

1. Open your Word Document
2. Highlight the text you want to change the spacing between
3. Right-click on your highlighted text
4. Click Font

1. Under Font, find and click Advanced

1. Click Spacing
2. Select Expanded to increase the spacing between your characters, or Condensed to reduce the size of the spacing between your characters

1. Press OK

You have now successfully adjusted the spacing between each character selected.

If you would like to expand or condense the spacing throughout your entire Microsoft Word document you can do so by highlighting the full text body and following the steps above.

Searching for a Better Way to Manage Version Control?

We’ve all been there when you are looking for the most recent version of a particular document to send onto your boss, client or team members and just can’t find it anywhere.

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With no easy way to name files and everyone on the team taking a different approach version control is a problem almost all of us face.

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