What are the requirements for text spacing?
Question
What are the accessibility requirements for text spacing?
Answer
Text spacing requirements are to ensure that individuals can change text spacing to improve their reading experience. With this in mind, avoid hard-coding container sizes using pixels, so the containers can adapt to a variety of content and still be readable and operable.
To meet WCAG Success Criteria 1.4.12 Text Spacing, ensure that users can adjust text spacing without loss of content or functionality:
- Line height changed to at least 1.5 times the font size,
- Spacing following paragraphs changed to at least 2 times the font size,
- Letter spacing changed to at least .12 times the font size, and
- Word spacing changed to at least .16 times the font size
For more information on building content that adjusts to different presentation needs, explore the "Adaptive Content & Other Page Requirements" course from Accessible Web Academy.
