Support letter spacing in `bevy_text` by gregcsokas · Pull Request #23380 · bevyengine/bevy

gregcsokas · 2026-03-16T09:17:43Z

Objective

Implements the LetterSpacing feature from issue Support line-height / letter-spacing in bevy_text #8781, the LineHeight is already implemented.

Solution

Connects Bevy's text pipeline to parley's built-in letter spacing support,
mirroring the approach used for LineHeight.
Rem and percentage-based sizing are not yet implemented.

Testing

Added a letter_spacing example that visually validates the feature.
Fixed AABB-related tests for text2d.
Reviewers can run: cargo run --example letter_spacing
Works like LineHeight, but currently only supports Px().
Note: letter spacing is currently a required field —
open to making it optional if that's preferred.

Showcase

cargo run --example letter_spacing

Or here is a video about it:

Kooha-2026-03-16-10-14-23.webm

…in UI text

github-actions · 2026-03-16T09:17:51Z

Welcome, new contributor!

Please make sure you've read our contributing guide and we look forward to reviewing your pull request shortly ✨

kfc35

I checked out the branch and it works as advertised — the example looks good too.

I don’t see any problems with the code.

Co-authored-by: Kevin Chen <chen.kevin.f@gmail.com> Co-authored-by: Alice Cecile <alice.i.cecile@gmail.com>

alice-i-cecile · 2026-03-16T23:52:52Z

+/// Default is 0
+#[derive(Component, Debug, Clone, Copy, PartialEq, Reflect)]
+#[reflect(Component, Debug, Clone, PartialEq)]
+pub enum LetterSpacing {


Follow-up (or this PR if you want): support LetterSpacing::RelativeToFont, like in LineHeight.

Happy to add it! Though I'm not sure what the semantics should be — CSS only supports
absolute values for letter-spacing, unlike line-height which has a natural
relative meaning.

Based on MDN, letter-spacing supports the following values:

normal (default) — not applicable in a game engine context since there is no user-agent

<length> — absolute units like px, em, rem

<percentage> — relative to the font's space character width, which would require
font-dependent calculations and is probably best left as a follow-up

So Em and Rem variants seem like a reasonable addition. Happy to implement those
if that's what you had in mind!

It seems reasonable to have a setting based on the font size, if you increase the font size you'd probably want the spacing to increase commensurately as well.

But I really think we should just merge this as is and add any responsive size support in a follow up. There are lots of changes we need to make and the anon tuples and queries could make the merge conflicts quite painful.

Oh didn't see that you'd already added rem support, that's fine too.

We could also add vw and vh variants, they might be useful if someone wants to have a title with the letters spread out across the window. But leave it for a follow up, we should get this merged asap.

alice-i-cecile

Very sensible: this is a nice feature and you've wired it into parley cleanly. There's a bit of cleanup to do, and I think you've forgotten to account for scale-factor here.

Ping me for re-review when that's fixed up :)

ickshonpe

Looks good, I don't see any problems apart from a few errors in the doc comments. The example is really nice.

Okay to just support pixel coords for the initial PR, we can add more options in a followup.

github-actions · 2026-03-17T00:32:55Z

It looks like your PR has been selected for a highlight in the next release blog post, but you didn't provide a release note.

Please review the instructions for writing release notes, then expand or revise the content in the release notes directory to showcase your changes.

ickshonpe · 2026-03-17T00:36:33Z

Should have a release note as well. Maybe rename new_font_features.md to new new_text_features.md and add it somewhere there?

… review fixes

…example

…n and usage

Co-authored-by: ickshonpe <david.curthoys@googlemail.com>

gregcsokas · 2026-03-17T16:38:26Z

@alice-i-cecile ping :)

arendjr · 2026-03-18T09:21:13Z

Thank you so much for implementing this!

@alice-i-cecile will this be available in the next Bevy minor, or will this be for 0.19?

kfc35 · 2026-03-18T16:32:50Z

@arendjr This should be available in 0.19! I don’t think Bevy at this time adds new features like this to patch releases

Fixes #23396 Please merge it after #23380

arendjr · 2026-03-19T15:05:29Z

Thank you!

# Objective - Implements the `LetterSpacing` feature from issue bevyengine#8781, the `LineHeight` is already implemented. ## Solution Connects Bevy's text pipeline to `parley`'s built-in letter spacing support, mirroring the approach used for `LineHeight`. `Rem` and percentage-based sizing are not yet implemented. ## Testing - Added a `letter_spacing` example that visually validates the feature. - Fixed AABB-related tests for `text2d`. - Reviewers can run: `cargo run --example letter_spacing` - Works like `LineHeight`, but currently only supports `Px()`. - Note: letter spacing is currently a required field — open to making it optional if that's preferred. ## Showcase `cargo run --example letter_spacing` Or here is a video about it: [Kooha-2026-03-16-10-14-23.webm](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/3d778bd0-c8bc-43d3-b61b-14ae23c3b906) --------- Co-authored-by: Alice Cecile <alice.i.cecile@gmail.com> Co-authored-by: Kevin Chen <chen.kevin.f@gmail.com> Co-authored-by: ickshonpe <david.curthoys@googlemail.com>

Fixes bevyengine#23396 Please merge it after bevyengine#23380

gregcsokas added 4 commits March 16, 2026 09:55

Add support for LetterSpacing in Text layout and rendering

ac23612

Integrate LetterSpacing into Text accessibility handling

caffdac

Import LetterSpacing in text2d.rs

1d8be69

Add letter_spacing example demonstrating adjustable letter spacing …

b549906

…in UI text

gregcsokas added 2 commits March 16, 2026 10:21

Fix import formatting for LetterSpacing across files

ae4a3e2

Add Letter Spacing example to examples README

836918c

gregcsokas changed the title ~~Support letter spacing in bevy text~~ Support letter spacing in bevy_text Mar 16, 2026

kfc35 added C-Feature A new feature, making something new possible A-Text Rendering and layout for characters S-Needs-Review Needs reviewer attention (from anyone!) to move forward D-Modest A "normal" level of difficulty; suitable for simple features or challenging fixes labels Mar 16, 2026

kfc35 approved these changes Mar 16, 2026

View reviewed changes

Clean up docs and comments

37a5d4c

Co-authored-by: Kevin Chen <chen.kevin.f@gmail.com> Co-authored-by: Alice Cecile <alice.i.cecile@gmail.com>

alice-i-cecile reviewed Mar 16, 2026

View reviewed changes

Comment thread crates/bevy_text/src/text.rs Outdated

alice-i-cecile reviewed Mar 16, 2026

View reviewed changes

Comment thread crates/bevy_text/src/pipeline.rs

alice-i-cecile reviewed Mar 16, 2026

View reviewed changes

Comment thread crates/bevy_text/src/text.rs Outdated

alice-i-cecile reviewed Mar 16, 2026

View reviewed changes

Comment thread crates/bevy_text/src/pipeline.rs

alice-i-cecile requested changes Mar 16, 2026

View reviewed changes

ickshonpe approved these changes Mar 17, 2026

View reviewed changes

ickshonpe added the M-Release-Note Work that should be called out in the blog due to impact label Mar 17, 2026

gregcsokas added 4 commits March 17, 2026 09:35

Add Rem support for LetterSpacing and update evaluation logic and…

f0213d0

… review fixes

Add Rem toggle and multi-justification support to letter_spacing …

c2e894a

…example

Clarify Px documentation to specify logical pixels in LetterSpacing

7b00415

Add release notes for LetterSpacing feature detailing implementatio…

3663aa8

…n and usage

gregcsokas mentioned this pull request Mar 17, 2026

Refactor sections_buffer from tuple to named struct #23396

Closed

Add release notes for LetterSpacing feature detailing implementatio…

f1145c8

…n and usage

ickshonpe reviewed Mar 17, 2026

View reviewed changes

Comment thread release-content/release-notes/new_font_features.md Outdated

ickshonpe added S-Ready-For-Final-Review This PR has been approved by the community. It's ready for a maintainer to consider merging it and removed S-Needs-Review Needs reviewer attention (from anyone!) to move forward labels Mar 17, 2026

ickshonpe approved these changes Mar 17, 2026

View reviewed changes

ickshonpe reviewed Mar 17, 2026

View reviewed changes

Comment thread release-content/release-notes/new_font_features.md Outdated

gregcsokas and others added 2 commits March 17, 2026 13:29

Apply suggestion from @ickshonpe

ad93ce4

Co-authored-by: ickshonpe <david.curthoys@googlemail.com>

Remove Em variant from LetterSpacing in release notes

f5def17

gregcsokas mentioned this pull request Mar 17, 2026

Refactor section_buffer from tuple to named struct #23398

Merged

gregcsokas added 2 commits March 17, 2026 16:47

Merge branch 'main' into support-letter-spacing-in-bevy_text

475354b

Refactor letter_spacing example to improve formatting and readability

0c88fef

kfc35 reviewed Mar 17, 2026

View reviewed changes

Comment thread crates/bevy_text/src/pipeline.rs Outdated

gregcsokas added 2 commits March 17, 2026 17:06

Rename section_index to span_index in text pipeline for clarity

7dc46b2

Remove redundant release notes for LetterSpacing feature

a6cde07

gregcsokas requested a review from alice-i-cecile March 17, 2026 17:03

alice-i-cecile approved these changes Mar 18, 2026

View reviewed changes

alice-i-cecile added this pull request to the merge queue Mar 18, 2026

Merged via the queue into bevyengine:main with commit 71cfd3e Mar 18, 2026
42 checks passed

github-merge-queue Bot pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Mar 18, 2026

Refactor section_buffer from tuple to named struct (#23398)

e9878a5

Fixes #23396 Please merge it after #23380

splo pushed a commit to splo/bevy that referenced this pull request Mar 31, 2026

Refactor section_buffer from tuple to named struct (bevyengine#23398)

3a1c2e1

Fixes bevyengine#23396 Please merge it after bevyengine#23380

Uh oh!

Conversation

gregcsokas commented Mar 16, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Objective

Solution

Testing

Showcase

Uh oh!

github-actions Bot commented Mar 16, 2026

Uh oh!

kfc35 left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

alice-i-cecile Mar 16, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

gregcsokas Mar 17, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

ickshonpe Mar 17, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

ickshonpe Mar 17, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

ickshonpe Mar 17, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

alice-i-cecile left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

ickshonpe left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

github-actions Bot commented Mar 17, 2026

Uh oh!

ickshonpe commented Mar 17, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

gregcsokas commented Mar 17, 2026

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

arendjr commented Mar 18, 2026

Uh oh!

kfc35 commented Mar 18, 2026

Uh oh!

arendjr commented Mar 19, 2026

Uh oh!

Reviewers

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Development

Uh oh!

5 participants

gregcsokas commented Mar 16, 2026 •

edited

Loading

ickshonpe commented Mar 17, 2026 •

edited

Loading