Adjusting Text Kerning
Kerning improves the appearance of titles by controlling the amount of space between characters. You can expand or condense the character spacing to make text more readable or to create special effects, such as dramatically expanded spacing in a title.
The text kerning controls are located beneath the text justification buttons.
You can kern the text for an entire text object, or you can manually kern individual character pairs or character strings. For example, if you mix italic and plain versions of a font in a title, you might want to adjust the spacing between characters.
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You can adjust kerning for individual characters or selected groups of
characters using the arrow keys only.
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You can use the menu options to select predefined kerning options or specify your own custom kerning value. Positive numbers increase the spacing; negative numbers decrease the spacing. You can also use the arrow keys to make incremental adjustments.
| Text tool |
| Kerning text box and Kerning selection button |
To adjust kerning manually with the arrow keys:
| 2. | |
Click between a character pair, or select a group of characters to be
kerned.
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| 3. | |
Press and hold the Alt key (Windows) or Option key (Macintosh), and
use the Left Arrow or Right Arrow key to increase or decrease the
kerning.
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To adjust kerning with the predefined sizes in the menu:
| 2. | |
(Option) Click the Kerning selection button, and select PairáKerning to
eliminate excessive space between some character pairs. Note that pair
kerning works only on fonts that support kerning tables (for example,
Palatino).
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| 3. | |
Click the Kerning selection button, and select a kerning option:
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Loose adds space between letters.
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Normal leaves spacing unchanged.
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Tight closes up the spacing between letters.
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To adjust kerning with the text box, do one of the following:
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Click in the Kerning text box, and type a positive or negative numerical
value. Values are a percentage of the point size.
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Click in the Kerning text box, and use the Up Arrow and Down Arrow
keys to change the value incrementally.
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The Title tool applies the kerning to the entire text object.
