Editing Small caps (section)

{{Short description|Lowercase letters as small capitals}}
{{Other uses|Small cap (disambiguation){{!}}Small cap}}
[[File:Small caps vs petite caps.svg|thumb|upright=1.2|Small caps, petite caps and [[Italic type|italic]] used for [[Emphasis (typography)|emphasis]]]]
[[File:True vs Scaled Small Caps.svg|thumb|upright=1.2|True small caps (top), compared with scaled small caps (bottom), generated by [[OpenOffice.org Writer]]]]
In [[typography]], '''small caps''' (short for '''small capitals''') are [[grapheme|character]]s typeset with [[glyph]]s that resemble [[uppercase]] letters but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding [[lowercase]] letters or [[text figures]].<ref name="Smith JPHS">{{Cite journal |last=Smith |first=Margaret M. |year=1993 |title=The Pre-history of 'Small caps': from all caps to smaller capitals to small caps |journal=Journal of the Printing Historical Society |volume=22 |issue=79–106}}</ref> Small caps are used in running text as a form of emphasis that is less dominant than all uppercase text, and as a method of emphasis or distinctiveness for text alongside or instead of [[italics]], or when [[boldface]] is inappropriate. For example, the text "Text in small caps" appears as {{Smallcaps|Text in small caps}} in small caps. Small caps can be used to draw attention to the opening phrase or line of a new section of text, or to provide an additional style in a dictionary entry where many parts must be typographically differentiated.

Well-designed small capitals are not simply scaled-down versions of normal capitals; they normally retain the same stroke weight as other letters and have a wider [[Aspect ratio (image)|aspect ratio]] for readability.

{{anchor|petite caps}}
Typically, the height of a small capital glyph will be one [[x-height|ex]], the same height as most [[lowercase]] characters in the font. In fonts with relatively low x-height, however, small caps may be somewhat larger than this. For example, in some Tiro Typeworks fonts, small caps glyphs are 30% larger than x-height, and 70% the height of full capitals. To differentiate between these two alternatives, the x-height form is sometimes called '''petite caps''',<ref>{{Cite web |date=2008-11-19 |title=OpenType Layout tag registry |url=http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/features_pt.htm#pcap |access-date=2014-05-15 |publisher=Microsoft}}</ref> preserving the name "small caps" for the larger variant.
[[OpenType]] fonts can define both forms via the "small caps" and the "petite caps" features. When the support for the petite caps feature is absent from a [[desktop publishing]] program, x-height small caps are often substituted.

Many [[word processor]]s and [[text formatting]] systems include an option to format [[Character (computer)|text]] in caps and small caps, which leaves uppercase letters as they are, but converts [[lowercase]] letters to small caps. How this is implemented depends on the typesetting system; some can use true small caps glyphs that are included in modern professional [[typeface]]s; but less complex [[computer font]]s do not have small-caps glyphs, so the typesetting system simply reduces the uppercase letters by a fraction (often 1.5 to 2 points less than the base scale). However, this will make the characters look somewhat out of proportion. A work-around to simulate real small capitals is to use a bolder version of the small caps generated by such systems, to match well with the normal [[Font#Weight|weights]] of capitals and lowercase, especially when such small caps are extended about 5% or letter-spaced a half point or a point.<!-- This stuff about specific point increases depends directly on the size of type being worked with. Letterspacing half a point for 150-point characters is much different from doing it for 5-point characters. -->