# Gaps

The MinIntercharacterGap is the minimum space, measured in pixels, which can occur between two characters. The gap is measured from the right edge of the mark rectangle of one character to the left edge of the mark rectangle of the next character.

If the gap between potential characters is less than this value, then the two potential characters must be considered parts of the same character, unless the combined character exceeds the value for CharacterMaxWidth.

Another gap that you can specify to ensure proper segmentation is the MaxIntracharacterGap, which is the maximum gap size, measured in pixels, which can occur within a single character, including damaged ones. An intracharacter gap is common for any dot-matrix font, as shown in the following figure:

Intracharacter gaps also occur in damaged characters, as shown in the following example:

Any gap larger than the maximum value you specify will be interpreted as a break between two separate characters, whereas gaps less than this value can be interpreted as a gap within a single character.

By default an OCRMax tool does not allow you to configure either an intercharacter or an intracharacter gap. You must change the setting for the CharacterFragmentMergeMode to a value that allows the tool to consider there are gaps between and within characters.