Kerning
![Kerning brings A and V closer with their serifs over each other](/Images/godic/202501/22/Kerning_EN.svg0418.png")
![The glyph on the right is kerned to overlap the character following it (glyphs are mirrored for printing).](/Images/godic/202501/22/Metal_type_kerning.svg0418.png")
![Three versions of](/Images/godic/202501/22/WAR_Kerning.svg0419.png")
![Some words are particularly difficult to space. The name of the Okavango River in southern Africa is difficult because the letters AVA fit together well, but this makes the spaces either side seem very large. Either wider or tighter letterspacing might help here.](/Images/godic/202501/22/Okavango_River_Sign0419.jpg")
In typography, kerning (less commonly mortising) is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerning adjusts the space between individual letter forms, while tracking (letter-spacing) adjusts spacing uniformly over a range of characters. In a well-kerned font, the two-dimensional blank spaces between each pair of characters all have a visually similar area.