can't adjust spacing between words

[logan.thorklebrosh]

I have a text box where the space between words is too small.  I don't know how to change it. 

Interestingly, I have another text box where it looks fine, but I can't find what setting controls this. 

I saved these 2 boxes with separate paragraph styles, but toggling the first box to have the other box's style doesn't change anything. 

[Manan Joshi]

Check the justification setting. See the screenshot

-Manan

[logan.thorklebrosh]

AS far as I can tell, the justification settings are identical. 

[logan.thorklebrosh]

Never mind - seems like there was some more text in the box (it was hidden) that seems to be what threw things off. 
Thanks!

[Geоrge]

It not seems like. If you have more text then you have overset text not what you show. 

[rob day · Accepted solution]

You can also adjust word spacing with a key command. With the text selected—Ctrl+Alt+Backspace (Windows) or Command+Option+Delete (Mac) decreases the word spacing, and Ctrl+Alt+\ (Windows) or Command+Option+\ (Mac) to increase. The key commands adjust the kerning values of the word spaces and don’t affect the Justification settings.

[logan.thorklebrosh]

That's very helpful to know! Is there a way to view this setting if I want to restore it to the default? 

[Peter Spier]

You can turn on highlighting for custom kerning in the composition section of the prefs. To restore to the defaults just select the text and choose metrics in the kerning field of the Character or Control panel.

[rob day]

If you manually adjust word spacing (via kerning), it would be a style override, so you could also remove the override on the  style. If you want to include custom word spacing in a Paragraph Style, I think the only option is to use the Justification settings:

A custom Justification—this doesn’t change the word space kerning. Here the preferred word space is set to 200%:

[logan.thorklebrosh]

Thanks so much - this is very instructive!

[sola0005]

That did not work for me.  Cmd+ option + delete did nothing to reduce the excessive space between words in Adobe.

[Peter Spier]

Did you have some text selected when you used the shortcut? It only works on selected text...

[sola0005]

Hi Peter,

Yes I selected text. I would like to make the adjustment for the entire document though.  Is it helpful to learn that the problem began when I sent a draft in Pages (I use a MacBook) and another copy of it in a .docx format to our outsourced formatting person.  She uses a PC and therefore returned a .docx document to me.  I had trouble editing her document in pages because she had some things locked that were uneditable. Instead, I converted the document into a .pdf because I have the Adobe subscriptions I need to edit it.

Much of her formatting is right on but I removed the full justification, which I thought would also remove the extra large spaces between words. It did not. So I still need to remove that effect.

Any help would be appreciated!

Susan

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I've always been leery of using this feature since it seems to be "invisible," leaving no trace of its use. Adjustments like tiny tweaks to the tracking overall can be spotted and corrected, for example.

If this push-pull is used... how can a user tell it's in play? It does pop the override flag for the style name, but is there any actual setting that changes? Any way to identify what the 'override' is? I see 'Kerning' goes blank for the selected text, but that's... pretty below the radar.

I just don't like doing things that can't be spotted and undone except in a general-reset way.

[rob day]

Hi James, If you select the word space, it will show as an adjusted Kerning amount in the Character panel, and if there’s a paragraph style applied it would have an override. In this case I could select the spaced text and set Kerning back to Metrics to remove the extra word spacing:

If you want to include extra word spacing in the style, you could enforce a larger Desired Word Spacing amount in the Justification tab. Here I have it set to 300% so there’s no Override.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Okay, I see it now. Prrrrettyyyy subtle but at least there is an indication.

Thanks!

[rob day]

A Paragraph Style can only have Metrics, Optical, or None (0) set as its Kerning amount, so a selected range of text with a blank Kerning amount would be another clue—it’s either the word spacing key command or some manual kerning applied to the text.

[sola0005]

When y'all discuss kerning vs tracking, is there a way to distinguish an adjustment of space between characters vs space between words?  

I was able to loosen up the crowded look of the words. My remaining problem is to reduce the space between words (which I thought would happen when I changed from the full to the left-justified paragraph format, but it didn't).

Any help is greatly appreciated!

[rob day]

You should be able to control the word spacing from the Paragraph Style’s Justifiction setting no matter what the paragraph’s alignment is—doing it form the keyboard would only be needed for the occasional style override when you are trying to customize a break.

If you want to enforce more or less word spacing set the Desired Word Spacing and keep a similar Minimum and Maximum. Here’s Left Justified vs. Left Alignment—they both respond to the Word Spacing setting:

[sola0005]

Is the justification tab a pc thing?  I don't see it in my Adobe Acrobat.

[Peter Spier]

It's not in Acrobat, it's an Indesign preference.

[Peter Spier]

If you turn on Highlighting for custom kerning and tracking in the prefs all those adjusted spaced will be highlighted.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

All good. I usually find highlighting distracting and don't have a problem with a solution not being immediately obvious; I had this classed as one of the features (like inherent bold and italic) that did not have a marker of its use and was thus something of a tar pit. I note I was wrong in that assumption, and appreciate being given a reason to add this useful little tweak to the tool set.

[Peter Spier]

Because this is a rarely used feature, at least in my work, I tend to leave that hightlight on to alert myself that I've done it. Not distracting if you don't have it on every page or paragraph.

[Scott Falkner]

This is the first I have heard of this. After experimenting I have discovered I have little need for this feature. As a shortcut to apply manual kerning to word spacing it is better than nothing. But it is not formatting I can apply, adjust, or make uniform using a style. I will stick with Justification settings. Still, nice to know it is there.