What is the width of the spaces between the words (by default) that LaTeX uses for text formatting?
[Tex/LaTex] Spaces width between the words
spacing
spacing
What is the width of the spaces between the words (by default) that LaTeX uses for text formatting?
Best Answer
The interword space is font dependent, as different fonts require generally different spacing. Moreover it's flexible, to allow justification: it can shrink and stretch.
The values for the default Computer Modern font are
The em width in this font is 10pt, so this amounts to saying that the interword space is 1/3 of an em, optimally stretchable up to 1/2 of an em and shrinkable up to 2/9 of an em.
Actually the stretch may go beyond the "optimum", if necessary for justification, but this stretch will contribute to the "badness" computed for the line.
The interword space components for a particular font can be obtained by the following code:
Put the code above after
\begin{document}
; load in the preamble the necessary packages, for example\usepackage{tgtermes}
or similar ones. The code may be also repeated as many times as one wish, inserted in braces and after a font choosing command.The TeXbook explains also the use of
\spaceskip
(and\xspaceskip
) for changing the interword space from the default established when the font is loaded.