How can I edit the letter-spacing in mail?

Yesterday I got an e-mail with wider space between each letter...

So here is my question: Where is the option to change the letter-spacing in e-mails I write with the Apple mail App??
Thank you very much for your Answer!

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Mar 16, 2016 9:10 AM

Reply
14 replies

Mar 17, 2016 1:21 AM in response to Duane

Hej Duane, thank you for your answer, but this was no help. Sorry, but I knew before how to change the font and that was not my question. Furthermore the answer is not right. The letter-spacing has nothing to do with the font I use... In the added pictures you can see two different screenshots from two different mails. In both Helvetica is used in 12 point, but the letter-spacing is different.


This is how I write the e-mail in the standard-spacing

User uploaded file


This is the spacing in the emailI got

User uploaded file


So it is the same Font but different spacing.

Mar 17, 2016 3:21 AM in response to tpdd

You don't have to assign a monospace font to plain text. However it does make it easier when you receive plain text mail to distinguish them from RTF mail.

You set the font for plain text messages in Font & Colors. Bottom row. Where it says "Menlo Regular 11" in Duane's screen shot.


RTF = Rich Text Format which means basically it honors formatting. Plain text has no formatting info.

Mar 17, 2016 7:49 AM in response to dialabrain

Yeah, but I asked this question, because I want to send emails with extra space between the letters. And when I follow your hints and define my e-mail should be send as plain text e-mail in Helvetica, then send it to my other address, the received text should look like the one in the bottom picture, shouldn't it??

But it does not...

Mar 17, 2016 10:24 AM in response to tpdd

You do understand that plain text messages are sent with no font defined. Therefore when anyone receives it, the display of the message will depend on the font used by their email client when it displays the message.


If you don't like the spacing provided by Helvetica, you should change your "Fixed-width font" setting back to "Menlo" or something else.


If you absolutely must control the spacing of the text, I recommend creating a PDF which contains your message and sending the PDF. Therefore the recipient will see the formatting exactly as you created it.

Mar 17, 2016 10:28 AM in response to tpdd

I'm back. I think we had a failure to communicate as was said in "Cool Hand Luke".


some definitions…

Monospace font: Equal spaces between the characters.

Fixed Width font: all characters are the same width.


Helvetica is neither a Monospace font nor a Fixed Width font so it will never look like it has extra space between the characters.

so, the only way in the Mail.app to compose something that appears to have extra space between characters is to…

a. use a font that has extra space.

b. add the "space" character between each letter

c. use an email client that supports kerning. I don't know what client it would be but it's not Mail.

Mar 17, 2016 12:14 PM in response to tpdd

Normally the only way to have your recipient see your message with wider letter spacing than normal is for you to compose the message in Rich Text and use the html letter-spacing property. I don't know of an email which lets you do this, but there may be one.


If you would View > Message > Raw Source on that email which you received with the wide spacing, it should be pretty easy to see what font was stipulated in the message and whether html letter spacing was used. Or you could email me that source an I could try to figure it out (tom at bluesky dot org).

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

How can I edit the letter-spacing in mail?

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.