What Is Tracking in Typography?

Tracking is how loosely or tightly a run of text is set. Increase it and every letter in the selection moves away from its neighbours by the same amount; decrease it and the text packs together. Because it is uniform, tracking changes the texture of a line, while kerning repairs individual pairs.

In design software tracking is measured in thousandths of an em, so a value of 50 adds one twentieth of an em after each character. In CSS the same control is letter-spacing.

When to add tracking

Rules of thumb used by typographers, not laws:

Capitals are drawn to sit beside lowercase letters and carry less side-bearing space than a line of capitals needs. A row of default-spaced capitals looks cramped, which is why spaced capitals read as formal or elegant. Lowercase gets the opposite treatment: extra tracking in a paragraph of lowercase text makes the word shapes harder to recognise. The old typesetters’ saying is that anyone who would letterspace lowercase would steal sheep.

Tracking versus word spacing

Tracking changes letters. Word spacing changes the gap at spaces. Tightening tracking in a headline without checking word spacing can make words run into each other. Always check that the words still separate clearly.

Tracking in hand lettering

On paper there is no setting, so tracking is a decision made while you plan the word. Tight, overlapping letters give a dense, energetic sign-painter look; generous spacing in thin capitals gives a calm, architectural one. For a consistent result, rule faint guidelines first and mark where each letter begins, as described in our lettering guide. In the lettering image maker you can set spacing against real typefaces and see the effect immediately.

Tracking and fancy Unicode text

Plain Unicode text has no tracking property. The wide style called vaporwave, from the vaporwave text generator, is a workaround: it uses fullwidth characters (Ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ), each drawn in a wide cell, to get a spaced look. The other workaround is inserting a space character between every letter. Both change the text itself, so they count toward character limits, and screen readers may read the result letter by letter. See fancy text accessibility for what happens when assistive technology meets these tricks.

Common confusions

• Tracking is not kerning. One is global, the other is per pair.
• Tracking is not leading. Leading is the vertical distance between lines.
• Monospace type has fixed spacing by design, so tracking an old monospace face behaves differently: you are still adding the same amount to a fixed grid.