Sometimes the spacing between characters in a line of text is noticeably too wide. This "loose" spacing is especially noticeable if the type size is large, as in titles. With RSG, you can manually track text to reduce the white space between all characters in a selection by an amount you specify. Or you can specify tracking for an insertion point so that what you type is tracked. You can track in thousandths of an em. RSG also has an automatic tracking feature. See To Automatically Tighten or Loosen the Character Spacing of Text, later in this chapter.

NOTE: In RSG, tracking refers only to reducing space between characters; letterspacing refers to adding space. For more information, see the next procedure, To Manually Add Character Spacing to Text.

1. Select an insertion point or the text you want to track.You may find it helpful to magnify your text. Choose Views from the Document menu, and then choose Double Size. This works best when your system contains the font at double the size of the character pair.

2. Choose Horiz Spacing from the Format menu. The Horizontal Spacing dialog box appears with the Track option selected. If a number other than 0 appears in the Amount box, the selected text has already been tracked by the amount indicated. If no amount appears in the box, the selected text has been tracked at different specified amounts (not including any autotracking levels that are also applied).

3. Type the amount of space that you want to remove in the Amount box. You can type from .001 to .5 ems.
   The size of an em varies. It is the same width as the current type size-for example, in 10-point type an em is 10 points wide. So the amount of space that you remove depends on the size of the type and the amount of ems you specify (type size x thousandths of an em).

4. Click Apply to see the results. The space to the left of each selected character is reduced by the amount you specified, and any following text adjusts to fit.
   RSG makes each tracking adjustment as part of the overall adjustment of horizontal spacing, which includes specified tracking and autotracking, specified kerning for a pair and autokerning, and letterspacing.
   Click OK when you're finished.
   To track text .05 em at a time, select the text you want to track. Hold down the Command key and press the left arrow key. Each press removes .05 em of space to the left of each selected character.
   To remove the effects of tracking, select the tracked text and choose Horiz Spacing from the Format menu. Type 0 in the Track box and click OK. Select Auto Track from the Format menu and choose Off.

Removing the tracking specs may not return the pairs to normal spacing if specified kerning, autokerning, and letterspacing are in effect.