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MakePixelsWork
MakePixelsWork
Active Member
April 25, 2021

Letter-spacing should not be percentage based

  • April 25, 2021
  • 28 replies
  • 74849 views

The default settings (at least in my Figma) load a percentage for letter-spacing, but this is not allowed in CSS. For a less avid programmer this may be confusing, when trying to get it to work.

Either set the default to a px value, or add a warning inside the Inspect code

image

    28 replies

    Gleb
    Gleb
    Power Member
    April 25, 2021

    In CSS code under the inspect tab it’s correctly shown as 0.01, no % there.

    image

      MakePixelsWork
      MakePixelsWorkAuthor
      Active Member
      April 25, 2021

      Then maybe it should not show % in the interface, but say ‘ems’ ?!

        Gleb
        Gleb
        Power Member
        April 25, 2021

        Figma is a platform-agnostic design tool, it’s built not only to design for the web, so showing CSS-only values that make no sense on other platforms wouldn’t be a great idea in my opinion.

          MakePixelsWork
          MakePixelsWorkAuthor
          Active Member
          April 25, 2021

          That’s not entirely true. Almost all inputs are in pixels, except maybe opacity. The input field I designated being faulty is the only one that has a percentage.

          If it truly was agnostic, it would not be called letter-spacing, because in typography its called ‘tracking’ (not kerning, that’s for individual letters).

          Almost everything in the screenshot is pixels.
          image

          The whole interface is based on pixels. The Rulers in Figma aren’t in CM’s or MM’s either, which would be a real drag for anyone using it to design a brochure, or print design.

          So lets not pretend. Figma is mainly for web and thus in px and (r)ems.

          PS: That’s why the fonts is also not in PT.

            Chris_Raymond
            Chris_Raymond
            May 17, 2021

            I am wondering why Figma seems to set letter-spacing on its own. Is there a reason the default on opening a new file isn’t 0? In fact, it would be nice to have a Figma preferences function such that all new files have the base settings for export and letter-spacing.

              Silvia_Moore
              Silvia_Moore
              November 5, 2021

              Screen Shot 2021-11-05 at 10.36.41 AM
              I was watching a figma tutorial … How on this video he can set up the letter-spacing in pixel?

                tank666
                tank666
                November 5, 2021

                Just add “px” after the numerical value.

                UX/UI designer. Figma expert. Creator and developer of plugins and widgets for Figma and FigJam. Check out my resources in Figma Community: figma.com/@tank
                  MakePixelsWork
                  MakePixelsWorkAuthor
                  Active Member
                  January 20, 2022

                  True, but the request of my topic is to have it in PX as a default.

                    Linda_Pham1
                    Linda_Pham1
                    January 22, 2022

                    This is not intuitive at all to put % when it can be changed to px. At least show both options and let the user select the measurement. I’m currently transitioning from Sketch → Figma and I’m having to google every little thing. For a design program that is used to create products that should be intuitive…this program is not.

                      Emile_Swain
                      Emile_Swain
                      February 17, 2022

                      I’m very confused. I’m having to fix spacing in our Flutter project, which expects spacing in px. Yet in Figma, its saying 1% across all fields, under both the design and inspect tabs.

                      1% of what exactly? How do i transform this into pixels?

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