Letter-Spacing & Kerning Guide
Convert a tracking value between em, percent, and per-1000-em units, and get a general tracking suggestion by point size.
Tracking in every unit
Suggested tracking
Try about 0 (1/1000 em) of tracking at this size.
Moving tracking between tools
Because every unit is ultimately a fraction of the font size, converting between them is straightforward multiplication and division — the trick is just knowing which fraction each unit represents. This calculator does that conversion both ways and also shows the resulting absolute pixel value for the font size you enter, which is what CSS's letter-spacing property actually expects.
The tracking recommendation is a separate, general guideline based on point size and whether the text is set in all caps. It's meant as a sensible starting point for hand-lettering layout and poster type — always check the result against the specific typeface and composition you're working with.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between tracking and kerning?
Tracking adjusts the spacing uniformly across a whole range of letters — useful for loosening or tightening a heading or a paragraph as a block. Kerning adjusts the space between one specific pair of letters (like "AV" or "To"), correcting spots where uniform spacing looks uneven. This tool handles tracking conversions; kerning is usually a per-pair adjustment built into a typeface or set by hand in design software.
Why are there three different units for the same thing?
Every tracking value is really a fraction of the font size (an "em"), but different tools display it differently. CSS's letter-spacing property takes raw em or pixel values. Page-layout software like Adobe InDesign and Illustrator historically use thousandths of an em (so a tracking of 20 means +0.02em). Some interfaces just show a percentage. This tool converts one input to all three so you can move a value between tools without recalculating by hand.
Why does the guide suggest tighter tracking for bigger type?
The same absolute amount of extra space between letters looks proportionally bigger at a large size than at a small one — so text set very large with the tracking of body text tends to look loose and disconnected. Type designers commonly compensate by tightening (using negative tracking) as size increases, and loosening slightly for small text or all-caps settings where letterforms otherwise crowd together. It's a widely used guideline, not a strict formula every typeface must follow.
Why do all-caps settings usually need more tracking?
Lowercase letters have a mix of ascenders, descenders, and varied shapes that the eye uses to tell words apart. All-caps text loses that variety — every letter is the same height — so a little extra space between letters helps keep individual words from reading as a single dense block.
Educational tool only. Conversions are exact arithmetic; the tracking recommendation is a general guideline, not a rule specific to any one typeface — trust your eye over the suggestion.