This function allows you to turn proportional spacing on and off.
In non-proportional spacing (such as a typewriter produces), every
letter occupies the same width, whether it is narrow like i
or
wide like m
, so that a line with 30 keypresses always has the
same width irrespective of the characters used.
Only a few fonts will work well with non-proportional spacing;
familiar representatives of this group are, for instance, the
typewriter fonts Courier
and Elite
. These are supplied
normally with non-proportional kerning in any case, so that you do not
have to switch off proportional spacing specially here for them.
Thus normally this icon should always be in a selected (inverse) state, otherwise the set text will almost always have an ugly appearance. Only in special cases such as for printing program listings or tables should proportional spacing be switched off by clicking on the icon to deselect it. As the use of Automatic kerning (see below) does not make much sense in that case, the relevant icon will be switched off too.
