Letter-spacing metal type one could only adjust groups of letters further apart (positive spacing). Letter-spacing adjustments are frequently used in news design. The speed with which pages must be built on deadline does not usually leave time to rewrite paragraphs that end in split words or that create orphans or widows. Letter-spacing is increased or decreased by modest (usually unnoticeable) amounts to fix these unattractive situations. Word processing and desktop publishing programs for personal computers such as—Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign, Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Photoshop—use differing methods of adjusting letter-spacing. What is common to most systems is
Bixby letter imitate Lincoln's handwriting, calling it "halting and awkward and makes his forceful hand appear like a child's scrawl". Tobin's facsimile also errs when compared to the original text of the letter published in Boston newspapers; adding the salutation "To Mrs Bixby, Boston Mass", misspelling the word "assuage" as "assauge", omitting the word "to" after the word "tendering", changing the plural "words" into "word", not capitalizing the words "freedom" and "republic", missing the recipient "Mrs. Bixby" on the bottom left, and combining the original three paragraphs into one. Huber's Museum corrected the spelling of "assuage" in their version of the facsimile.