What Is Leading in Typography?
By Maya Chen, lettering designer and type educator · Checked by Jordan Hale · · How we review content
Leading is the space between lines of text, measured from baseline to baseline. If a paragraph is set in 10-point type on 12-point leading, each baseline sits 12 points below the one above it, which leaves a 2-point gap between the bottom of a descender on one line and the top of an ascender on the next.
The word is a leftover from hot-metal and hand-set printing. To open up lines, compositors put thin strips of lead between rows of type. “Solid” setting had none; “leaded” setting did. That is why the word rhymes with “wedding”.
Setting leading well
Three things affect how much leading a block of text needs:
| Factor | Effect on leading |
|---|---|
| Line length | Longer lines need more, so the eye can find the start of the next line |
| x-height | Fonts with a large x-height look dense and need more |
| Weight and darkness | Bold or dark text needs more room than light text |
A frequent default is about 120% of the type size for body text, and many web designers use line-height: 1.5 for readability. Headlines in large type look better tighter, around 100 to 110%, because gaps scale up with the letters and become distracting.
All-capital lines can be set very tight, since they have no descenders to avoid. Mixed-case text with tall ascenders and long descenders, such as script faces, often needs extra room.
Leading in hand lettering
When you letter a quote or a poster with several lines, the leading is set by your guidelines. Decide the x-height and cap height first, rule the baselines, and the distance between them is your leading. A tight block, where ascenders of one line nearly touch the descenders above, gives a compact “stacked” look often used in posters. It only works if the descenders are controlled: a long tail on a g or y in a script word is the usual cause of collisions.
Script styles with big swashes, as in our cursive letters pages, need larger leading than their x-height suggests, since ascender loops and descender loops extend far from the baseline. Our what is lettering guide covers guidelines in more detail.
Leading and fancy Unicode text
Line spacing is set by the app showing your text. In a bio or comment, you cannot change it. What you can control is line breaks: using separate short lines gives a poem-like look. Be aware that characters from different Unicode blocks may come from different fallback fonts, whose taller metrics can make one line in a post look more open than another.
Common confusions
Frequently asked questions
How do you pronounce leading in typography?
What is a good leading value for body text?
Is leading the same as line height?
Does fancy Unicode text change line spacing?
Related terms
- What Is the Baseline in Typography?The baseline is the imaginary horizontal line on which the letters of a line of text sit. Descenders hang below it and every vertical measure of a typeface, such as x-height and cap height, starts from it.
- What Is Tracking in Typography?Tracking is the uniform adjustment of space between all the letters in a selection of text, such as a word, line or paragraph. It changes how dense the text looks. Adjusting one specific pair of letters is kerning, not tracking.
- What Is an Ascender?An ascender is the part of a lowercase letter that extends above the x-height, as in b, d, f, h, k and l. The ascender line, the height these strokes reach, is a key guideline in handwriting and lettering.
- What Is a Descender?A descender is the part of a letter that extends below the baseline, as in g, j, p, q and y. The depth these strokes reach, the descender line, limits how tightly lines of text can be stacked.
- Typography & Lettering GlossaryThe Typography & Lettering Glossary defines twenty terms that type designers and letterers use every day, from kerning and x-height to serif, ligature and blackletter. Each entry gives a precise definition, then shows what the idea means for hand lettering and for the styled Unicode text our generators produce.
- What Is an Ampersand? Origin of the & SymbolThe ampersand is the symbol & meaning "and". It began as a handwritten ligature of the Latin word et, its name comes from the old schoolroom phrase "and per se and", and many typefaces draw it in strikingly elaborate ways.