can't adjust spacing between words

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
February 6, 2022
3 replies
24308 views

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.

Type

Correct answer rob day

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.

rafaellondon

Participating Frequently

Hello from 2025.
With the MacBook Pro keyboard doesn't seems to work the keyboard Opt Cmd Del to decrease word space.
I recomend create new keyboard shortcut asigning Decrease Word Space to: Option Comand '
This way both increasing wordspace and decreasing and next to each other in the keyboard. decreas: ' inclrease: \

rob day

Correct answer

Community Expert

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.

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

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.

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

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.