fonts/cc-by-sa/knowledge/glossary/terms/tracking_letter_spacing/content.md

Tracking is the spacing between [glyphs](/glossary/glyph) applied to an entire piece of [text](/glossary/text_copy). In CSS, this is called `letter-spacing`.

<figure>

![Three examples, with both large and small type, showing tracking that is too tight, just right, and too open. The large type has blocks of color between each letter of the first word to emphasize the spacing differences.](images/thumbnail.svg)
<figcaption>Too tight, just right, and too open.</figcaption>

</figure>

Providing more open tracking—i.e., more space between the letters—usually helps with the [readability](/glossary/legibility_readability) of [all-caps](/glossary/all_caps) text. Negative tracking—i.e., a value less than “0”—is usually not encouraged unless the type is being set at very large (i.e., [display](/glossary/display)) sizes.

Many novice typographers mistakenly talk about [kerning](/glossary/kerning_kerning_pairs) when they actually mean tracking. Kerning is the customised spacing between two particular glyphs, whether that’s kerning pairs in the font itself (defined by the [type designer](/glossary/type_designer), or a custom kern by the end user, such as in logo creation.

Note that some software (including browsers) may disable [ligatures](/glossary/ligature) when kerning or tracking is applied.