Quick reference

Class
Properties
tracking-tighterletter-spacing: -0.05em;
tracking-tightletter-spacing: -0.025em;
tracking-normalletter-spacing: 0em;
tracking-wideletter-spacing: 0.025em;
tracking-widerletter-spacing: 0.05em;
tracking-widestletter-spacing: 0.1em;

Basic usage

Setting the letter spacing

Use the tracking-* utilities to control the letter spacing of an element.

tracking-tight

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

tracking-normal

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

tracking-wide

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

<p class="tracking-tight ...">The quick brown fox ...</p>
<p class="tracking-normal ...">The quick brown fox ...</p>
<p class="tracking-wide ...">The quick brown fox ...</p>

Using negative values

To use a negative letter-spacing value, prefix the class name with a dash to convert it to a negative value.

Using negative values doesn’t make a ton of sense with the letter-spacing scale Tailwind includes out of the box, but if you’ve opted to customize your letter-spacing scale to use numbers instead of descriptive words like “wide” the negative value modifier can be useful.

<p class="-tracking-2">The quick brown fox ...</p>

Applying conditionally

Hover, focus, and other states

Tailwind lets you conditionally apply utility classes in different states using variant modifiers. For example, use hover:tracking-wide to only apply the tracking-wide utility on hover.

<p class="tracking-tight hover:tracking-wide">
  <!-- ... -->
</p>

For a complete list of all available state modifiers, check out the Hover, Focus, & Other States documentation.

Breakpoints and media queries

You can also use variant modifiers to target media queries like responsive breakpoints, dark mode, prefers-reduced-motion, and more. For example, use md:tracking-wide to apply the tracking-wide utility at only medium screen sizes and above.

<p class="tracking-tight md:tracking-wide">
  <!-- ... -->
</p>

To learn more, check out the documentation on Responsive Design, Dark Mode and other media query modifiers.


Using custom values

Customizing your theme

By default, Tailwind provides six letter-spacing utilities. You can change, add, or remove these by editing the theme.letterSpacing section of your Tailwind config.

tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    letterSpacing: {
      tightest: '-.075em',
      tighter: '-.05em',
      tight: '-.025em',
      normal: '0',
      wide: '.025em',
      wider: '.05em',
      widest: '.1em',
      widest: '.25em',
    }
  }
}

Learn more about customizing the default theme in the theme customization documentation.

Arbitrary values

If you need to use a one-off letter-spacing value that doesn’t make sense to include in your theme, use square brackets to generate a property on the fly using any arbitrary value.

<p class="tracking-[.25em]">
  <!-- ... -->
</p>

Learn more about arbitrary value support in the arbitrary values documentation.