Spacing

Prepress Preparation, Continued Spacing Spacing between letters, words, and lines affect legibility. LETTERSPACING: Letterspacing is the placement of extra space between the letters of words to improve or balance the type. Divide the spacing evenly between letters and words to maintain visual balance. WORD SPACING: Word spacing is the adjustment of spaces between words to shorten or extend a line of type. This is often used to justify text. Justification is the alignment of both the right and left margins to a predetermined length. Mechanical word spacing uses an em space. The em space is the standard unit of measure for the typeface being used and equals the square of the body type based on the letter "M". One half of an em space is known as a en space. Too much space in between words causes a disturbing visual break in composition by creating rivers of white space on the printed page. LINE SPACING: Spacing between the lines of text is called line spacing or leading. Line spacing is the distance in points from the base line of one line of type to the base line of the next line of type. Long lines of text require more spacing between lines. If no additional spacing is used between lines, the text is said to be set solid. Navy publications generally use 2-point leading. Figure 1-17 shows examples of line spacing. Figure 1-17.—Line spacing. Continued on next page 1-22