Get numeric values of word spacing displayed?

Question

while there are two ways to influence the word spacing (by setting the minimum, desired, and maximum values in the Justification settings, and by using the keyboard short cut increasing or decreasing word spacing), I cannot find where the resulting word spaces are displayed as numeric values. Since kerning values are easily looked into, I presume there must be a way to have the word spacing values displayed, too. But how?

Answer 1

It's not a known item in Javascript -- it would need to be a private property of the Line class, as each single line has its own word spacing adjustment.
But using two javascripts you can find out how much the space on each line is stretched or compressed.
First, you need to know the width of a regular space in the font and size (and other parameters as well, such as tracking and horizontal scaling!). Select one single space in Left Aligned text and run this script:
alert ( app.selection[0].insertionPoints[1].horizontalOffset - app.selection[0].insertionPoints[0].horizontalOffset);
It will show a popup with a ridiculous exact number. Myriad Pro at 8 pts, for example, gives "0.59828389485676". Now press Ctrl+C to copy this text (I'm not sure if the Mac can do this as well!). Go to another script and paste just the number in there:
regularWordSpace = 0.59828389485676;
alert ( 100*(app.selection[0].insertionPoints[1].horizontalOffset - app.selection[0].insertionPoints[0].horizontalOffset)/regularWordSpace);
If you select any justified space (again, using the same font, size, tracking, whatnot), it'll display a fairly reliable percentage, yeah, unto the seventh generation of exactitude and more.