Talk:Leading

Illogical statement
I may miss something but under Practices, the last line of paragraph 2 reads: "As leading is increased, the more of the page is consumed with text which reduces white space on a page and increases the readability for a user." Leading increases white space, which means less of the page is consumed with text (consumed?). Is this what increases readability? Then it contradicts the first sentence of the same paragraph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.80.117.214 (talk) 22:09, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
 * We can check the cited reference, because it's a web page, not a book. The text of the web page doesn't support that bad sentence, so the mistakes were obviously added by an earlier contributor. I fixed it. Why didn't 208.80.117.214 do what I just did instead of complaining in Talk? 38.86.48.38 (talk) 19:30, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Single spacing, one-and-a-half spacing, and double spacing
There needs to be some explanation on exactly what constitutes the common terms "single spacing", "one-and-a-half spacing", and "double spacing". Simple logic would tell you that these constitute factors of 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0, which multiply some constant value. However, in the LaTeX system, there is a package by the name "setspace.sty" that sets the "\baselinestretch" property to 1.0 for "single spacing", 1.25 (and variations such as 1.213, and 1.241) for "one-and-a-half spacing", and 1.6667 (and variations such as 1.618, and 1.655) for "double spacing". Thus, for the layman, it is not entirely evident why these factors are not 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0. Doing some math would tell you that there is a ratio of 1.2 between 1.5 and 1.25 (one-and-a-half-spacing), and between 2.0 and 1.6667 (double spacing).

I haven't used Microsoft Office lately, but Open Office shows that the factors are 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0. How is this different from the LaTeX system. Certainly, an explanation must exist. Expert advice on this would be useful. ---201.127.62.122 (talk) 04:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)


 * LaTeX uses a baselineskip of 1.2 by default. The effective value is calculated by multiplying baselineskip by baselinestretch. So one-and-a-half spacing = 1.25*1.2 = 1.5, exactly what would be expected. Likewise, double space = 1.667 * 1.2 = 2.0 (close enough). Since Knuth was a perfectionist, the baselineskip varies slightly between font sizes, hence the small variations.
 * Bottom line: when using the distance between base lines, it's just 1.0 (single space), 1.5 (one and a half) and 2.0 (double space). The normal, default base line distance is 1.2 for most modern typesetting programs. This is where the confusion comes from.
 * Hope this helps.
 * Sciurius (talk) 21:42, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal
Interline spacing currently is a concise and well-referenced treatment of the same material. There is no need to duplicate this information where a redirect will serve. 'Leading' is the older (and, in typesetting circles, dominant) term. pablo 14:40, 17 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I support the merger because line spacing seems to simply repeat the content. Zian (talk) 02:05, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Subjective opinion
"The same block of text at 100% leading is again harder to read and makes less efficient use of vertical page space:" This is very subjective. Some people prefer bigger spacing. Perhaps it should be changed to "most readers find it harder to read", if an appropriate research reference can be cited. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.0.84.104 (talk) 15:55, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Misleading redirection
The "line spacing" redirects to the "leading" page. "Text set 'solid' (no leading) appears cramped, with ascenders almost touching descenders from the previous line." That might be so for leading but not for spacing. Just watch the output of any program producing single-spaced lines. They are perfectly fine for reading (for example LaTeX default output). This wiki page contains no information related to line spacing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.195.128.252 (talk) 10:33, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Two spaces
Given that for whatever mysterious reasons, people interpret "double spacing" as being two spaces in a row between sentences, maybe this article should include a small section making the distinction with a link to sentence spacing. -  Sweet Nightmares  18:25, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It's always funny when people take the time to write an improvement in the talk page rather than actually fixing the article. I added it to the redirect and disambiguation block because you didn't and because that's exactly what I had been searching for when I was redirected here instead of to the Sentence spacing article. 38.86.48.38 (talk) 17:45, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Practices and Issues
Just added a couple short paragraphs on the topic. I had been doing some research and though the page could use the information. Mjcousins (talk) 03:30, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Is leading space between baselines or that minus one?
The article isn’t consistent in what it calls leading.

At the beginning it claims that ‘leading refers to the distance between the baselines of successive lines of type’ but later it refers to negative leading which would mean lines are set in reverse order and ‘50% leading’ which would mean space between baselines of half the size of the font.

Similarly, the article also reads ‘in CSS, leading refers to the difference between the content height and the value of the line-height property’ which is not the same as distance between baselines.— mina86 (talk) 16:32, 19 August 2016 (UTC)


 * mina86, I agree that is self-contradictory.
 * Since then that beginning has changed to give a different definition of leading, which appears to be consistent with the rest of those statements and with the current version of the article.
 * The leading is traditionally the height of the white space between the bottoms of the descenders on one line of text and the tops of the ascenders on the next line of text.
 * The distance between baselines ("line-height" in CSS) is the total of the point size (more-or-less "font-size" in CSS) plus the leading.
 * There is no direct control of leading in CSS.
 * Are there any remaining inconsistencies in this article that haven't already been fixed? --DavidCary (talk) 03:43, 13 January 2022 (UTC)


 * DavidCary, looks fine to me now. — mina86 (talk) 19:30, 14 January 2022 (UTC)