CSS word-spacing attribute

Definition

The word-spacing property increases or decreases the spacing between words (i.e., character spacing).

This property defines how many whitespace characters are inserted between elements. For this property, 'word' is defined as a string enclosed by whitespace characters. If specified as a length value, it adjusts the usual spacing between characters; therefore, 'normal' is equivalent to setting it to 0. Negative length values can be specified, which will make the characters closer together.

Note:Negative values can be used.

See also:

CSS Tutorial:CSS Text

HTML DOM Reference Manual:wordSpacing property

Example

Specifies that the character spacing in the paragraph is 25 pixels:

p
  {
  word-spacing:25px;
  }

Try it yourself

Tips and notes

Note:CSS defines 'word' as any sequence of non-whitespace characters enclosed by some whitespace character. This definition has no actual semantics; it is merely an assumption that a document contains words enclosed by one or more whitespace characters. User agents that support CSS may not be able to determine which are valid words and which are not in a given language. Although this definition is not very valuable, it means that languages using logographic scripts or non-Roman scripts often cannot specify character spacing.

Tip:Using this property may create documents with excessively wide character spacing, so be cautious when using word-spacing.

CSS syntax

word-spacing: normal|length|initial|inherit;

Property value

Value Description
normal Default. Defines the standard space between words.
length Defines the fixed space between words.
inherit Specifies that the word-spacing property should inherit its value from the parent element.

Technical details

Default value: normal
Inheritance: yes
Version: CSS1
JavaScript syntax: object.style.wordSpacing="10px"

More examples

Increase or decrease word spacing (character spacing)
This example demonstrates how to increase the spacing between words in a paragraph.

Browser support

The numbers in the table indicate the first browser version that fully supports this attribute.

Chrome IE / Edge Firefox Safari Opera
1.0 6.0 1.0 1.0 3.5