Add spacing between letters in environment

Question

% Defines the rSection environment for the large sections within the CV
\newenvironment{rSection}[1]{ % 1 input argument - section name
  \sectionskip
  \hrule % Horizontal line
  \MakeUppercase{\bf #1} % Section title <----
  \sectionlineskip
  \begin{list}{}{ % List for each individual item in the section
    \setlength{\leftmargin}{0em} % Margin within the section
  }
  \item[]
}{
  \end{list}
}

I would like to add some spacing between the letters of the section title. I have tried {\addfontfeature{LetterSpace=10.0}\MakeUppercase{\bf #1}} but this didn't work. What should I do? I am using XelaTex.

I have a lot of trouble finding documentation for stuff like this. Where should I be looking?

I have tried the solution at XeLaTeX: Space between letters but it didn't work.

See: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/24917/capital-letter-expanded-letter-space-kerning — Steven B. Segletes, Feb 07 '18 at 17:25

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 07 '18 at 17:42

You can't use \addfontfeatures on a font that has not been explicitly loaded.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}

\setmainfont{Latin Modern Roman}

\NewDocumentCommand{\spaceduppercase}{m}{%
  {\addfontfeatures{LetterSpace=10}\MakeUppercase{#1}}%
}

\begin{document}

\spaceduppercase{Test} TEST

\textbf{\spaceduppercase{Test}} \textbf{TEST}

\end{document}

So change your (wrong) \MakeUppercase{\bf #1} into

\textbf{\spaceduppercase{#1}}

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 07 '18 at 17:23

Are you restricted to using XeLaTeX? If you were free to use LuaLaTeX, you could load either the microtype package or the letterspace package (which is, basically, a much stripped down version of microtype). If using LuaLaTeX is feasible, just change

\MakeUppercase{\bf #1}

to

\textls*{\MakeUppercase{\bfseries #1}}

(Aside: \bf is deprecated for LaTeX documents. Use either {\bfseries ...} or \textbf{...}.)

See section 7 of the user guide of the microtype package for more information on \textls and how to change the amount of letterspacing (aka tracking).

Add spacing between letters in environment

2 Answers2