The process of reducing the spacing between certain pairs of letters to improve their appearance. When a font is created, each character is given a width that includes some space around it so that the letters don' t run into each other when displayed or printed. This can be thought of as an invisible box around each character. Some pairs of characters such as A and V, look better if the boxes overlap slightly, bringing the characters closer together (but still not touching). See also tracking, leading. (1996-06-07)
