What is typography tracking?
Ava Bailey
Updated on April 24, 2026
Also question is, what is kerning and tracking?
In typography, kerning is the process ofadjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font,usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerningadjusts the space between individual letter forms, whiletracking (letter-spacing) adjusts spacing uniformly over arange of characters.
Subsequently, question is, what is tracking graphic design? Tracking and kerning are essential elements ofdesign that can have a great impact on the readability andvisual appeal of your documents. Tracking refers toloosening or tightening a selected block of text, while kerning isthe process of adding or subtracting space between specific pairsof characters.
Simply so, what does font tracking mean?
Tracking Your Type. Tracking refers touniformly increasing or decreasing the horizontal spacingbetween a range of characters. In the days of metal type, eachpoint size of a given typeface was a separate 'font,'so the punch cutter was able to make slight adjustments to thedesign and spacing of each point size.
What is tracking measured in?
Tracking and kerning are both measured in1/1000 em, a unit of measure that is relative to the currenttype size. In a 6-point font, 1 em equals 6 points; in a 10-pointfont, 1 em equals 10 points. Kerning and tracking arestrictly proportional to the current type size.