Kerning is a typography feature that adjusts the spacing between specific pairs of characters to improve the appearance and readability of text. While Microsoft Word automatically applies kerning for many fonts, you can manually adjust these settings to create more polished headings, titles, and professional documents.
Whether you’re designing a brochure, resume, or marketing material, understanding kerning can make your text look more balanced and visually appealing.
What Is Kerning?
Kerning refers to the adjustment of space between two individual letters. Unlike standard character spacing, which changes the distance between all characters evenly, kerning only modifies selected letter pairs to achieve a better visual result.
For example, letter combinations such as AV, WA, and To often look better when the spacing between them is slightly reduced.
How to Change Kerning in Word
Microsoft Word allows you to enable automatic kerning for fonts above a certain size.
Step 1: Select Your Text
Open your Word document and highlight the text you want to adjust.
Step 2: Open Font Settings
You can access the Font dialog box in two ways:
- Press Ctrl + D on your keyboard.
- Or go to the Home tab and click the small arrow in the lower-right corner of the Font group.
Step 3: Open the Advanced Tab
In the Font window, select the Advanced tab.
Here, you’ll find several spacing options:
- Normal – Uses the default character spacing.
- Expanded – Increases the space between letters.
- Condensed – Decreases the space between letters.
- Kerning for fonts – Automatically adjusts spacing for specific letter combinations.
Step 4: Enable Kerning
Check the Kerning for fonts box.
In the Points and above field, enter the minimum font size where kerning should be applied. The default value is usually 12 pt.
Click OK to save the changes.
Adjust Character Spacing Manually
If you want more control over letter spacing, Word also lets you expand or condense text manually.
- Select the text.
- Open the Font dialog box (Ctrl + D).
- Go to the Advanced tab.
- Under Spacing, choose:
- Expanded to increase spacing.
- Condensed to decrease spacing.
- Adjust the amount in the By box.
- Click OK.
When Should You Use Kerning?
Kerning works best for:
- Document titles
- Large headings
- Logos
- Posters
- Flyers
- Marketing materials
For regular body text, Word’s default spacing is usually sufficient.
