Adjust character spacing and formatting

Some fonts include ligatures, a decorative joining of two characters to form a single typographic character. You can use ligatures if the font you’re using supports them.

Text with and without ligatures.

You can make other kinds of adjustments to the spacing between characters, and make text superscript or subscript.

Turn ligatures on or off for selected text

  1. In the Text pane of the Format inspector, click the Style button.

  2. In the Font section, click Advanced options button, then choose an item in the Ligatures pop-up menu.

    • Use Default: Uses the ligature settings specified in the Typography window for the font you’re using.

      To open the Typography window, choose Format > Font > Show Fonts (from the Format window at the top of your computer screen).

    • Use None: Uses regular spacing with no ligatures for the font.

    • Use All: Uses all available ligatures for the font.

To remove ligatures from selected text, choose “Use None” from the Ligatures pop-up menu.

Widen or narrow the space between characters

  1. Select the text you want to change, or select a text box if you want to change all the text it contains.

  2. In the Text pane of the Format inspector, click the Style button.

  3. In the Font section, click Advanced options button, then use the arrows to change the Character Spacing value.

    The default spacing is zero. Increasing the value widens the spacing, and decreasing the value tightens it.

  • If you selected a text box: The character spacing applies to any text you type in the box after you apply the change.

  • If you selected just specific text: The character spacing applies only to that text. New text you enter isn’t spaced the same way.

  • If you want other text in the spreadsheet to use the same spacing and other settings: Define a new paragraph style from the selected text, then easily apply that style to other text in your spreadsheet.

Make characters superscript or subscript

You can adjust the baseline of characters to make them superscript or subscript. A trademark symbol is superscript because it’s raised above the trademarked term. In a chemical formula, the number of atoms is subscript because it’s lowered below the symbol of the atom. In Numbers, you can make selected text superscript or subscript, then adjust the baseline of the text by small increments if you want.

  1. Select the text you want to make superscript or subscript.

  2. In the Text pane of the Format inspector, click the Style button.

  3. In the Font section, click Advanced options button, then choose Superscript or Subscript from the Baseline pop-up menu.

  4. To adjust the placement, use the arrows to change the Baseline Shift value.

Numbers also includes built-in character styles that specify text attributes such as italic, underline, or strikethrough. These styles are similar to paragraph styles—you can create a new style, assign a shortcut to it, rename it, and more. The tasks in Use paragraph styles apply to character styles as well.