Adjusting letter and word spacing

Depending on the type of justification you choose, you might want to adjust letter and word spacing to reduce raggedness or eliminate unusual spacing; e.g., left-justified paragraphs might appear too ragged on the right edge, and full-justified paragraphs might have large spaces between characters and words.

You can specify a minimum line width for a paragraph to reduce raggedness. In addition, Canvas has letter- and word-spacing parameters to let you specify minimum, maximum, and desired spacing guidelines.

To adjust letter and word spacing:

1. Depending on how you want the letter and word spacing settings to apply, do one of the following:
   • To change existing text: Select the paragraphs or text objects. To set spacing for only one paragraph, place the insertion point anywhere in the paragraph.
   • To set the spacing before typing a new paragraph: Place the insertion point at the beginning of the paragraph.
   • To apply the spacing settings to the preset format: Deselect all objects.
2. Open the Type palette by choosing Text | Type.
3. Click the Paragraph tab to bring it to the front, if necessary.
4. Depending on the type of justification applied to the text, use the following options on the Paragraph tab:
   • For right-, left-, and center-justified text: To set the “Minimum line widths,” enter a percentage in the text box. The percentage tells Canvas to adjust letter and word spacing so that each line is at least as wide as specified; e.g., if you create a two-inch wide, left-justified paragraph and set the minimum line width to 75%, Canvas adjusts the spacing so that each line is at least 1.5 inches wide. Only the last line in a paragraph is unaffected by the “Minimum line widths” setting.
   • For full-justified text: To tell Canvas when the last line of a paragraph is wide enough to be justified (flush with both right and left margins), enter a percentage in the “Justify Last Line Within” box; e.g., you create a two-inch wide, full-justified paragraph and tell Canvas to justify the last line within 75%. If the last line is less than 1.5 inches wide, Canvas does not justify the line. However, if the last line is wider than 1.5 inches, Canvas justifies the line.

5. To set letter and word spacing parameters, click the Spacing tab to bring it to the front, if necessary. Set the minimum, desired, and maximum spacing in the Letter and Word areas. Specify each setting as a percentage of the current spacing. The desired spacing must be greater than the minimum and less than the maximum. The maximum spacing cannot be less than the minimum.

   Canvas will try to adjust spacing to the desired percentage, but might not be able to depending on minimum line width and justification settings. In these cases, Canvas will then try to adjust the spacing within the minimum and maximum percentages you specify. However, if the minimum and maximum spacing parameters are still in conflict with minimum line width or full justification settings, Canvas will ignore the spacing parameters.

   If you applied kerning to characters within the selection, Canvas adjusts the spacing as a percentage of the kerning.

   To change the spacing of a paragraph by a set amount, you can set the minimum, desired, and maximum percentages to the same value. This has a similar effect to kerning the entire paragraph.

6. Click Apply to implement the settings.