James wrote:
Is there any way to track incrementally? That is, I’d like to be able to input, say for example, ‘2.5’ into the kerning or tracking field. But indesign changes this to ‘3’. Sometimes 3 is too much!
No, I don’t think there’s any way to input fractions of units. In InDesign, each unit is 1/1000th of an em space. So, if you’re in 24-pt text, one unit is .024 pt (about .0003 inches). I think it’s quite unlikely that anyone would ever notice the difference between one unit of kerning/tracking, much less a half unit.
If you’re noticing a difference between 3 and 4 units of tracking, you’re probably zoomed in to something like 4000%, which displays things that won’t necessarily appear in the real world.
In QuarkXPress, each unit of tracking or kerning was 1/200th of an em (5 times bigger than InDesign’s).
By the way, one question I’m often asked is “what are the keyboard shortcuts for kerning and leading?” You can change kerning and tracking by pressing Option/Alt-left or right arrow. You can change leading (for selected characters) by pressing Option/Alt-up or down arrow. (The up arrow decreases leading… it pushes the lines “up.”) If you don’t like the huge 20-unit change in kerning/tracking or the 2-point change in leading, you can change those values in the Units & Increments pane of the Preferences dialog box.
This article was last modified on December 18, 2021
This article was first published on June 26, 2007
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