Kerning is a typographic technique that adjusts the spacing between specific pairs of adjacent characters. For example, pairs like "AV" and "To" appear visually too far apart at default spacing, so kerning tightens the gap.

In CSS, the font-kerning property enables or disables the font's built-in kerning data, while letter-spacing adjusts uniform spacing between all characters. Typography practical guides teach kerning principles.

In Japanese typography, adjusting spacing around punctuation and brackets (called tsume-gumi) is the equivalent of kerning. OpenType fonts support automatic adjustment through the palt feature.

Web fonts often have kerning enabled by default, but it may be disabled for performance reasons. Web font optimization books discuss the balance between kerning and performance.