Adjust character spacing

You can increase or decrease the spacing between characters in any text. You might want to do this, for example, to experiment with line length in text, or to make a title fit on a single line.

Another way to affect character spacing is to use ligatures, a decorative joining of two characters to form a single typographic character. You can use ligatures in your spreadsheet if the font you’re using supports them.

Text examples with and without ligatures

Increase or decrease the space between characters

  1. Select the text you want to change, or select a text box to change all the text in it.

    • For specific text: The character spacing applies only to that text.

    • For a text box: The character spacing applies to any text you type in the box after you apply the change.

  2. Click the Text tab at the top of the sidebar on the right, then click the Style button near the top of the sidebar.

    If you don’t see a sidebar, or the sidebar doesn’t have a Text tab, click Format button in the toolbar.

  3. In the Font section, click Gear button for advanced options, then use the arrows to change the Character Spacing value.

    The Advanced Options checkbox next to Bold, Italic, and Underline buttons

    The default spacing is zero. Increasing the value widens the spacing, and decreasing the value tightens it.

If you want other text in the spreadsheet to use the same spacing and other settings, define a new paragraph style from the selected text, then apply that style to other text in your spreadsheet.

Turn ligatures on or off for selected text

  1. Select the text you want to change, or select a text box to change all the text in it.

    • For specific text: The character spacing applies only to that text.

    • For a text box: The character spacing applies to any text you type in the box after you apply the change.

  2. Click the Text tab at the top of the sidebar on the right, then click the Style button near the top of the sidebar.

    If you don’t see a sidebar, or the sidebar doesn’t have a Text tab, click Format button in the toolbar.

  3. In the Font section, click Gear button for advanced options, click the Ligatures pop-up menu and choose an option.

    The Advanced Options checkbox next to Bold, Italic, and Underline buttons
    • Use Default: Uses the ligature settings specified in the Typography window for the font you’re using.

      To open the Typography window, choose Format > Font > Show Fonts (from the Format window at the top of your screen).

    • Use None: Uses regular spacing with no ligatures for the font.

    • Use All: Uses all available ligatures for the font.

SEE ALSORaise and lower characters and textUse accents and special charactersFormat an equation with MathTypeCreate and use character styles