I find that ConTeXt's letterspacing command does not adjust the interword space the way I'd expect it to. As the letterspacing factor grows, it gets hard to tell words apart, as the spaces between letters and between words become of similar size. (Perhaps it is simply adding the same space factor to both.)

Is this by design? And if so, is there a way to tweak the interword space, to compensate?

(The ConTeXt wiki tells me that \definecharacterkerning takes some extra parameters, but I can't quite tell what they do.)

I'm using ConTeXt MkXL 2025.04.01 12:45.

I find that ConTeXt's letterspacing command does not adjust the interword space the way I'd expect it to. As the letterspacing factor grows, it gets hard to tell words apart, as the spaces between letters and between words become of similar size. (Perhaps it is simply adding the same space factor to both.)

Is this by design? And if so, is there a way to tweak the interword space, to compensate?

(The ConTeXt wiki tells me that \definecharacterkerning takes some extra parameters, but I can't quite tell what they do.)

I'm using ConTeXt MkXL 2025.04.01 12:45.

Edit: To give an example, the chapter titles of Bringhurst's Elements of Typographical Style look something like this (I've eyeballed it, and bear in mind the original uses a different, non-free, font):

Using the same factor in ConTeXt's \letterspacing, however, yields which is not as legible IMO, and even less so for bigger spacing factors.

But Max Chernoff's answer is workable, and I'll gladly accept it if there's no proper "ConTeXt-y" solution.

Thanks!

\setupbodyfont[ebgaramond] \startTEXpage[offset=1em] %{\spaceskip=.33em \letterspacing[.16]{THE GRAND DESIGN}} \letterspacing[.16]{THE GRAND DESIGN} \stopTEXpage