An editor or software engineering tool may be configured to render whitespace between adjacent tokens, wherein the amount of whitespace between any two adjacent tokens is determined according to language-specific style rules and scaled in accordance with display considerations. In some realizations, the operative scaling is selected or defined by a user according to the user's visual preferences. In some realizations, the operative scaling relates to requirements or constraints of an automated layout mechanism. For example, a particular scaling may be calculated to adjust line length in conformance with a desired margin alignment or to optimize layout when long lines are automatically wrapped (or folded) in some automatic way.