CSS word-spacing, letter-spacing, etc.

Question

Hello! I just wanted to express how odd it is to me that CSS has options for actual metric units for attributes such as word-spacing and text-spacing.

I mean, if you ever need to print your website on paper, I guess that would make sense, but otherwise it seems strange to me to say, for example, "letter-spacing:-1cm" when the combination of browser used, monitor size, and zoom settings make that totally arbitrary, don't they?

Answer 1

Well what about design! Lots of sites started using the trend a couple of years back where text was ultra thin with large character spacing and using text shadows to make it crisp and sharp. Design is so important and avoiding images where possible is good practice so it seems only right that CSS should support such things.