What is the definition of tracking in typography?

Tracking is a typography term that refers to the space between characters in a block of text. Tracking is consistent for all characters, so changing it will impact the overall appearance of text. Tracking can be adjusted to make text appear more spacious or to help fit text in a tight space.

Tracking is easily confused with kerning, which is the space between specific character pairs. For example, the kerning in the letter pair “AV” is generally adjusted to avoid an awkward gap between these two letters (e.g., “A V”), but this adjustment will not impact the spacing of other letter pairs.

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