The letter-spacing property specifies spacing between characters while the word-spacing specifies spacing between words.

Letter spacing

The letter-spacing property contains following information:

  1. value: normal, <length> or inherit;
  2. initial: normal;
  3. applies to: all elements;
  4. inherited: yes;
  5. percentages: N/A;
  6. media: visual;
  7. computed value: normal or absolute length.

The value normal allows the browser to adjust the spacing in order to justify text. The length value adds additional amount of space to the default space between characters; and browsers must not change it to accommodate text justification. The length value is also allowed to be negative.

Word spacing

The words-spacing property contains following information

  1. value: normal, <length> or inherit;
  2. initial: normal;
  3. applies to: all elements;
  4. inherited: yes;
  5. percentages: N/A;
  6. media: visual;
  7. computed value: normal ('0') or absolute length.

The normal value refers to spacing from the chosen font default value. The length value adds additional amount of space to the default space between words. The length value is also allowed to be negative.

This properly is slightly more complicated as it may be affected by the text alignment and justification.

Example

Example with CSS letter and word spacing properties:

 

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