Website Accessibility Guide

1.4.12 Text Spacing

Written by MCS Accessibility Team | May 19, 2020 1:00:00 PM

Understanding 1.4.12 Text Spacing

This criteria ensures that the user has the ability to adjust line height to at least 1.5 times the font size, letter spacing to at least 0.12 times the font size, and word spacing to at least 0.16 times the font size.

There should be no loss of content or functionality from updating these style properties.

The CSS letter-spacing property helps developers control the amount of white space between characters

The CSS line-height property helps developers control the amount of white space between lines

Sufficient and Additional Techniques:

  • Provide controls on the web pages that allow users to change the spacing and height of all text
  • Allow text spacing without wrapping

Warnings

When designing your site, allow for text spacing without wrapping, set zoom level to 100%, use a tool or another mechanism to apply the text spacing metrics (line height, and paragraph, letter, and word spacing), such as the Text Spacing Bookmarklet or a user-style browser plugin. Check that all content and functionality is available e.g., text in containers is not truncated and does not overlap other content.