Character Spacing in Word: How to Adjust Letter Spacing for Logo Text

The short answer

In Microsoft Word, select the text, open the Font dialog, go to the Advanced tab, and use the Spacing control under Character Spacing. Choose Expanded to add space between letters or Condensed to tighten them, then enter an amount in the By box, which is measured in points. The Preview pane shows the effect before you click OK. This changes the spacing of live text inside the document. It does not turn the lettering into vector logo artwork.

Terms used in this guide

• Tracking: uniform spacing applied across a run of letters. Word's Expanded and Condensed settings work like tracking on the selected characters.
• Kerning: adjusting the space between a specific pair of letters, such as A and V, so the gaps look even. Word's "Kerning for fonts" option applies the kerning pairs built into the font. It does not let you hand-adjust individual pairs.
• Point: a typographic unit of measurement. Word uses points for both font size and spacing amounts.
• Outlined text: letters converted into vector paths, which are shapes made of anchor points and curves, so the artwork no longer depends on an installed font.

How to change letter spacing in Word, step by step

• 1. Select the exact characters you want to change. Spacing applies only to the selection.
• 2. Open the Font dialog. On Windows, click the small launcher arrow in the corner of the Font group on the Home tab, or press Ctrl+D. On Mac, use Format > Font, or press Command+D.
• 3. Select the Advanced tab.
• 4. Under Character Spacing, open the Spacing menu and choose Expanded or Condensed. Normal resets the text to the font's default spacing.
• 5. In the By box beside Spacing, type or step the amount in points.
• 6. If you want the font's built-in pair kerning, tick "Kerning for fonts" and set the size at which it starts to apply.
• 7. Check the Preview pane, then click OK.

The same tab also includes a Scale setting, which stretches or squeezes the letter shapes themselves, and a Position setting, which raises or lowers characters. Neither one is letter spacing. Scale in particular distorts the designed proportions of the typeface, so leave it at its default when you only want to change the gaps between letters.

How to verify the result

• Zoom in well beyond normal reading size and compare the gaps between letters. Gaps should look even, not merely measure the same.
• Click inside the adjusted text and reopen the Font dialog's Advanced tab to confirm the Spacing setting and amount you intended.
• Check the end of the selection. Word adds the extra space after each selected character, so the last letter may push the following character or space away. If that happens, apply the spacing to every letter except the last one.
• Look at problem pairs such as letters with diagonal strokes or overhangs. Uniform tracking will not fix one awkward pair. That needs kerning, which Word does not offer for individual pairs.
• Print a proof or view the text at the size it will actually be used. Spacing that looks right large can look cramped small, and the reverse.

What this means for logo artwork

Word is useful for testing a wordmark idea or matching spacing in documents, but it does not produce production-ready logo files. Text in Word stays live type that depends on the font installed on each computer. Spacing settings may not carry over exactly when the text is pasted into another application. Exporting to PDF can embed fonts, but that does not turn the letters into editable vector outlines, and a PDF extension alone does not prove the file contains clean vector paths.

For delivery-grade logo artwork, recreate the lettering in a vector illustration application. Set the tracking there, adjust individual kerning pairs by eye, and then convert the text to outlines so the spacing and letterforms are fixed as paths. Keep an unoutlined, editable copy for future changes. Also confirm that the font's license permits use in a logo, because the ability to type it in Word does not grant that permission.

Gaps in the available information

No version-specific evidence was supplied, so the menu paths above describe the long-standing desktop Font dialog. Labels and locations can differ between Word versions and platforms. Word for the web may not expose the full Advanced tab, so check your own version. No recommended spacing values for logos are given here, because suitable amounts depend on the typeface, the size and the design intent rather than on a fixed figure.