How to Adjust Letter Spacing in Microsoft Word

The Short Answer

In desktop versions of Microsoft Word, letter spacing is controlled in the Font dialog box on its Advanced tab, under Character Spacing. To open it, select your text and use the small dialog launcher in the corner of the Font group on the Home tab. Set Spacing to Expanded to add space between letters or Condensed to remove it, then enter an amount in the By box, measured in points. The same tab has a Kerning for fonts option, which applies pair adjustments built into the typeface.

Menu names and dialog layouts differ between Word for Windows, Word for Mac and Word for the web, and they have changed across releases. The steps below follow the long-standing desktop layout. Check them against the version you have, especially if you use the browser version, which may not offer the full Advanced tab.

Tracking and Kerning

Tracking is a uniform change to the space across a whole run of letters. Word's Expanded and Condensed settings work like tracking: every character in the selection gets the same adjustment. Kerning is the adjustment of space between one specific pair of letters, such as a capital A next to a V, where the letter shapes create a visual gap. Word's kerning checkbox only turns on the pair values stored in the font. It does not let you nudge a single pair by hand the way a vector drawing program does.

This difference matters for logos. A wordmark, which is a logo made entirely of styled lettering, usually needs both an overall tracking decision and manual correction of individual pairs. Word can handle the first and only partly handle the second.

Before You Start

• Confirm that the font is installed and that its license allows the use you plan, including use in a logo and embedding in shared files.
• Decide whether Word is the final production tool or only a place to test ideas. Word documents are not vector logo files.
• Type the logo text exactly as it will appear, including capitalization, because spacing behaves differently for capitals and lowercase.
• Set the font size you intend to judge at. Word's spacing amount is in fixed points, so the same value looks larger on small text than on large text.

Steps: Change Character Spacing

• Select the characters you want to change. To adjust a single gap, select only the first letter of the pair.
• On the Home tab, open the Font dialog with the launcher in the Font group. Many Windows versions also open it with Ctrl+D. On a Mac, the Format menu usually has a Font command.
• Go to the Advanced tab.
• Under Character Spacing, open the Spacing list and choose Expanded or Condensed.
• In the By box, enter a point value or use the arrows to step through values. The Preview pane shows the effect.
• To use the font's built-in pair kerning, tick Kerning for fonts and set the minimum point size it applies to.
• Leave Scale at its default unless you mean to stretch or squeeze the letter shapes themselves. Scale distorts the glyphs, meaning the drawn letter shapes. It does not change spacing.
• Click OK.

Settings on the Advanced Tab

Setting | What it changes | Logo relevance

Spacing: Expanded | Adds equal space after each selected character | Opens up tight lettering or capitals

Spacing: Condensed | Removes equal space after each selected character | Tightens loose text; too much makes letters collide

By | Size of the expansion or condensing, in points | Fixed value, so rescaling the text changes the visual effect

Kerning for fonts | Turns on pair kerning stored in the font above a chosen size | Helps with common pairs but allows no manual control

Scale | Horizontally stretches or compresses the letters | Distorts the typeface; usually avoided in professional lettering

Position | Raises or lowers characters from the baseline | Useful only for deliberate offsets

How to Confirm the Result

• Select the adjusted text, reopen the Advanced tab, and check that the Spacing type and By value match what you set. A mixed selection may show a blank field.
• Look at the lettering at the size it will be used and again at a much larger zoom. Uneven gaps between particular pairs show up most clearly when enlarged.
• Turn the text upside down mentally, or blur your eyes, to judge the rhythm of the spacing instead of reading the words.
• If the text will be printed, print a test at actual size, because on-screen zoom can hide tight or loose spots.
• After saving as PDF, open the PDF and check the document fonts list to confirm that your font was embedded and not substituted.

Turning Word Lettering Into Logo Artwork

Word is useful for quick tracking tests, but it is not designed to produce logo master files. A delivery-ready vector logo normally has its lettering converted to outlines. Converting to outlines means the letters become editable path shapes instead of live text that depends on an installed font. Word does not provide this conversion. To get there, recreate the lettering in a vector editor, reapply the tracking, adjust individual pairs manually, and convert the text to outlines.

Saving a Word document as PDF typically keeps the text as live type, with the font embedded only if the font's license and Word's settings allow it. A PDF extension alone does not prove that a file contains clean vector paths, that it is editable, or that you have permission to reuse the logo. Open the file in a vector editor and inspect it before treating it as artwork.

Gaps in This Guide

No version-specific documentation was supplied for this guide, so the exact menu wording, keyboard shortcuts, and availability of the Advanced tab in Word for the web or the newest releases are not confirmed here. No recommended spacing values are given either, because suitable tracking depends on the typeface, the letter case, and the size at which the logo will appear.