Technique C8:Using CSS letter-spacing to control spacing within a word

Applicability

All technologies that support CSS.

This technique relates to:

1.3.2: Meaningful Sequence (Sufficient when used with G57: Ordering the content in a meaningful sequence)
1.4.5: Images of Text (Advisory)
1.4.9: Images of Text (No Exception) (Advisory)
1.4.12: Text Spacing (Advisory)

Description

The objective of this technique is to demonstrate how the visual appearance of spacing in text may be enhanced via style sheets while still maintaining meaningful text sequencing. The CSS letter-spacing property helps developers control the amount of white space between characters. This is recommended over adding blank characters to control the spacing, since the blank characters can change the meaning and pronunciation of the word.

Examples

Example 1: Separating characters in a word

The following CSS would add the equivalent of a space between each character in a level-2 heading:

h2 {	letter-spacing: 1em; }

So for the markup:

<h2>Museum</h2>

the rendered result might look something like:

M u s e u m

Other sources

No endorsement implied.

CSS 2: Letter and word spacing

Tests

Procedure

For each word that appears to have non-standard spacing between characters:

Check whether the CSS letter-spacing property was used to control spacing.

Expected Results

Check #1 is true.