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When you set justified text, the space between words varies. When you
set text that is flush left, for example (and ragged right, of course),
the spaces between the words are all the same.
The standard word space in this circumstance is called a thin. It is
_nominally_ one-third of an em wide. In other words, if you are setting
12 pt type, the thin is 4 pt wide. However, the font designer actually
specifies the width of the thin. So if you are working in a condensed
font it will be narrower than one-third of an em, and if you are working
in an expanded font, it will be wider. In addition, a layout program
(PageMaker, Quark, InDesign--I don't know about Frame) allows you to
specify that the type should be set tight or loose. These settings also
adjust the actual width of the thin.
The other fixed spaces you will typically encounter are the en space
(one-half of an em), the figure space (the width of a numeral, usually
but not always the same as the en space), and the em space (nominally a
square of the point size, but adjusted by the designer for condensed and
expanded fonts).
You should also know that certain characters always have the same widths
as certain spaces. For example, numerals and mathematical operators and
delimiters (such as $ and %) are always the width of the figure space.
Small punctuation (period, comma, colon, semi, hyphen) are always the
width of the thin space. Well, almost always, but you can generally
count on it.
These are good facts to know when you are designing tables, among other
things.
Dick
Lin Sims wrote:
Ok, I give up. I've done some research, and other than determining
that a thin space is "the thinnest space that normally separates
words", what is it and what's it for?
(NB: I do NOT have a background in typography, and until I started
using Frame I'd never heard of thin spaces. After I started using
Frame I'd heard of them, but ignored them completely.)
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