Refining Spacing and Alignment
The Refine page lets you tune how each character sits in text. This is where you fix crowded or gappy spacing, letters that float above the line, or characters that came out too big or too small.
[SCREENSHOT: FontCraft Refine page showing the five sliders panel with a text preview below]
The Five Sliders
Space Before (Left Side Bearing)
The amount of invisible padding on the left side of a character. Increasing it adds more breathing room before the letter. Decreasing it (or going negative) brings it closer to the character before it.
Use this when a particular letter looks too close to, or too far from, its neighbours on the left.
Space After (Right Side Bearing)
The amount of padding on the right side of a character. Works the same as Space Before but controls the gap on the right.
A good starting point for most letters is around 50 to 100 font units on each side. Rounded letters like o, c, and e usually need slightly more space than narrow straight letters like i or l.
Vertical Alignment (Baseline Shift)
Moves the character up or down relative to the baseline. Use this if a character looks like it's floating above the line or sinking below it.
This is often needed for punctuation marks (commas, apostrophes, hyphens) and numbers, which can end up at unexpected heights depending on how they were drawn.
[SCREENSHOT: FontCraft Refine page with the Vertical Alignment slider adjusted, showing a character that was sitting too high now aligned with the rest of the word]
Scale
Resizes the character proportionally. Use this if a letter came out noticeably larger or smaller than the rest of the alphabet. A scale of 1.0 is the original drawn size.
Be conservative. Scaling a character up or down significantly can affect how it connects with neighbouring letters in terms of visual weight.
Letter Spacing
A global adjustment that adds or removes space between all characters at once. Unlike Space Before and Space After (which apply to individual characters), Letter Spacing applies uniformly across the whole font.
Use this for a quick overall spacing correction, then use per-character sliders to fine-tune specific letters.
Testing Your Spacing
Type these words into the preview to spot common problems:
- noon: tests how n and o sit together (all rounded and straight letters)
- minimum: the repeated m, i, and n expose spacing inconsistencies
- AVATAR: tests capital A-V combinations which often have a visual gap
- Waterfall: a good general test across mixed letter shapes
If specific pairs look wrong (like "To" having a big gap, or "AV" looking awkward), adjust the Space After of the first letter or the Space Before of the second in that pair.
Changes Save Automatically
Adjustments on the Refine page save immediately and trigger a background rebuild. You don't need to manually build to see your changes reflected in the preview.