Prepress Preparation, ContinuedSpacingSpacing between letters, words, and lines affect legibility.LETTERSPACING: Letterspacing is the placement of extra space betweenthe letters of words to improve or balance the type. Divide the spacingevenly between letters and words to maintain visual balance.WORD SPACING: Word spacing is the adjustment of spaces between wordsto shorten or extend a line of type. This is often used to justify text.Justification is the alignment of both the right and left margins to apredetermined length. Mechanical word spacing uses an em space. The emspace is the standard unit of measure for the typeface being used and equalsthe square of the body type based on the letter "M". One half of an emspace is known as a en space. Too much space in between words causes adisturbing visual break in composition by creating rivers of white space onthe printed page.LINE SPACING: Spacing between the lines of text is called line spacing orleading. Line spacing is the distance in points from the base line of one lineof type to the base line of the next line of type. Long lines of text requiremore spacing between lines. If no additional spacing is used between lines,the text is said to be set solid. Navy publications generally use 2-pointleading.Figure 1-17 shows examples of line spacing.Figure 1-17.—Line spacing.Continued on next page1-22
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