How to Adjust Letter Spacing in Photopea

The short answer

In Photopea, you change letter spacing in the Character panel. Select a text layer or highlight specific characters with the Type tool. Then change the tracking value to loosen or tighten a whole run of text, or change the kerning value to adjust the gap between one pair of letters. Photopea's interface closely follows Photoshop's type controls, so if you know those panels, these will look familiar.

Some terms are worth separating before you start. Tracking changes the space evenly across every character in a selection. Kerning changes the space at one point, between two adjacent letters. Leading is the vertical distance between lines of text, not the space between letters. In logo work, tracking sets the overall rhythm of a wordmark, and kerning fixes uneven gaps that the font's built-in spacing leaves behind.

Evidence gap: no version-specific Photopea documentation was supplied for this guide. The panel names, menu paths and shortcuts below describe Photopea's Photoshop-style type controls in general terms. Labels and placement can change between updates, so check each command against the version you have open.

Before you start

• Make sure the lettering is a live text layer. Text that has been rasterized or converted to a shape can no longer be respaced with tracking or kerning.
• Confirm the intended font is installed or loaded in Photopea. If a fallback font has been substituted, its spacing will differ from the final artwork.
• Duplicate the text layer and hide the copy. This keeps an untouched original for comparison or recovery.
• Zoom to a working view where you can see individual letter gaps clearly.

Step-by-step: adjusting tracking

• 1. Open the Character panel from the Window menu. It may also be available as a toggle in the Type tool's options bar.
• 2. Choose what to change. To affect every character in the layer, select the text layer in the Layers panel without entering edit mode. To affect only part of the text, choose the Type tool and drag across the characters you want.
• 3. Find the tracking field in the Character panel. In Photoshop-style panels, it is usually marked with a VA icon and an underline or arrow.
• 4. Enter a positive value to add space or a negative value to remove it. You can also pick a preset from the dropdown. In Photoshop-style tools, tracking is measured in thousandths of an em, so the same value scales with font size. Check whether your Photopea version labels its units the same way.
• 5. Commit the edit by clicking the checkmark in the options bar, pressing Enter on the numeric keypad, or switching tools. Plain Enter may add a line break while you are editing text.

Step-by-step: kerning individual letter pairs

• 1. With the Type tool, click to place the text cursor between the two letters you want to adjust. Do not highlight them.
• 2. In the Character panel, find the kerning field. It sits next to tracking and is usually marked with a VA icon and no underline.
• 3. Check the starting setting. Kerning may default to the font's built-in metrics or to an optical mode that spaces letters by their shapes. Switching to a numeric value replaces that automatic spacing at the cursor position.
• 4. Enter a positive or negative value and watch the gap change.
• 5. Move to the next problem pair and repeat. Common trouble spots include diagonal and overhanging letters next to round or straight ones, such as A next to V, or T and Y next to lowercase letters.
• 6. Photoshop uses Alt plus the left or right arrow keys (Option on macOS) to nudge kerning or tracking in steps. Photopea may support the same shortcut, but test it in your version before relying on it.

Checking that the spacing works for a logo

Even numeric spacing does not guarantee spacing that looks even. Letter shapes create different amounts of visual white space, so judge the result by eye at the sizes the logo will actually appear.

• Zoom out until the wordmark is small on screen and look for gaps that stand out or letters that seem to touch.
• Blur your view or flip the canvas horizontally. This interrupts reading so you see the spacing pattern rather than the words.
• Compare the edited layer against the hidden original to confirm the change is an improvement and not just a difference.
• Check the smallest intended use, such as a favicon, social avatar or small print item. Tight spacing that looks refined at large sizes can make letters merge when small.
• If the wordmark sits next to a symbol, check the gap between them along with the letter spacing. Both affect how balanced the lockup looks.

These are design recommendations, not fixed rules. All-capitals wordmarks often benefit from slightly looser tracking. Large display lettering can often take tighter tracking than body text. The right amount depends on the typeface and the logo's sizes of use.

Preparing the spaced lettering for delivery

Once the spacing is final, decide whether the text should stay editable or become fixed outlines. Live text depends on the font being available wherever the file is opened. Converting the text to a shape turns each letter into vector paths, so the spacing is locked and no longer needs the font. Photopea offers a convert-to-shape command for text layers, typically in the Type or Layer menu or the layer's right-click menu. Keep the hidden editable copy in your working file before converting.

• For vector delivery, export to SVG from Photopea's export options. Then reopen the exported file in Photopea or another vector editor, or view it in a text editor, and check whether the letters were saved as paths or as live text elements.
• For PDF delivery, check the same thing. A PDF can contain vector paths, live text, embedded raster images or a mix of these.
• For raster delivery such as PNG, export at the pixel dimensions the placement needs. Check that the spacing still reads clearly at that resolution.
• Keep the layered Photopea or PSD working file so you can adjust the spacing again later without rebuilding the logo.

A file extension alone does not prove the file contains only vector content, that it can be edited, or that you may reuse the logo or its typeface. Check the file's contents directly. Confirm the font license covers logo use and outlined artwork. Confirm you have the rights to the mark itself.