Re: [csswg-drafts] [css-text] Reconsider the initial value of the `text-autospace` property (#12386)

The JLReq Task Force discussed this topic at its meetings on 2025-08-05 and 2025-09-02. The following reflects the views and requests of the Japanese experts within the JLReq TF:
1. When Japanese and Latin scripts are mixed, the designs of their glyph faces and side bearings differ greatly; placing them as-is often produces visual and perceptual inconsistencies. To address this, there is a historically established method of providing appropriate space between Japanese and Latin (wa-oukan-aki). This approach has been cultivated in print/typesetting practice—despite the manual effort involved—and should be respected as an effective, historically grounded solution.
2. The question of Japanese–Latin spacing is not a binary matter of “leave space / leave no space”; it is a quantitative one—“how much space to leave.” If the Japanese font is designed with a more relaxed glyph face, a correspondingly larger space is desirable; conversely, if the glyphs are drawn to fill the body, a smaller space is optimal. In some edge cases—depending on the type design and context—the appropriate amount to leave may be zero.
3. In general, long-form text faces for novels (e.g., Iwata Mincho, Ryumin) have more relaxed glyph faces and therefore need wider Japanese–Latin spacing. Next come magazine text faces; the default system fonts on macOS/iOS (Hiragino) and Noto Sans JP fall in this range. By contrast, Windows’ Meiryo and headline/title faces tend to draw the glyphs to fill the body, so the required spacing is smaller. In short, the optimal amount of spacing depends on the type design.
4. Historically, a spacing width of one quarter of the fullwidth was often used. This stemmed from the fact that older typefaces tended to have more relaxed glyph faces and that smaller spacing was operationally difficult to handle. Even at the time, however, there were views that this amount was excessive. Given that today’s platform default typefaces are tighter, this width appears even larger visually. Therefore, the current default amount of one eighth of the fullwidth is considered a reasonable initial value.
5. Inserting ASCII/Latin space characters in the text to obtain Japanese–Latin spacing is undesirable. Japanese–Latin spacing concerns style, not text content, and inserting space characters can alter the meaning and data properties of the text (search, copy-and-paste, screen reading, etc.). Moreover, the width of an ASCII space is around 1/4 em, and, as noted above, this width is often perceived as too large. Historically, such insertion has been a workaround in environments that cannot lay out Japanese–Latin spacing; production publishing data typically do not include such characters. The practice of inserting literal space characters is also undesirable for data compatibility.
6. As a near-term policy, the JLReq TF agrees with the CSS WG’s decision to allow browsers to ship with `text-autospace` set to `no-autospace` as the initial value.
7. Looking ahead, we strongly hope that the CSS WG will lead efforts so that, without authors having to insert spaces manually and without readers having to adjust settings, appropriate Japanese–Latin spacing will be provided by default, yielding readable and beautiful text. We believe the time horizon should look further ahead than past backward-compatibility concerns. For the reasons stated above, it is also desirable that the spacing amount be adjustable.

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Received on Tuesday, 2 September 2025 05:33:44 UTC