Editing Small caps (section)

===Unicode<span class="anchor" id="Unicode"></span>===
{{Contains special characters|Uncommon Unicode|section}}

In orthography, small caps are [[allograph]]s of capital letters. [[Unicode]] defines a number of small-capital (or, more accurately, petite-capital) characters for specialized use such as [[phonetic notation]]. They are deprecated as substitutes for small-cap formatting; rather, the basic character set should be used with suitable formatting controls as described in the preceding sections. Normal text set with these characters suffers from a number of deficiencies: Some letters, including the standard English letter [[X]], have no corresponding "small capital" character; hard-coded small caps are not generally intelligible to the [[screen reader]]s used by blind people; nor, typically, is text set using these characters recognized by general-purpose translation or text-searching tools.

The Unicode petite-capital characters are found in the [[IPA extensions (Unicode block)|IPA extensions]], [[Phonetic Extensions]], [[Latin Extended-D]] and other blocks. These characters are intended for use in notation where they are semantically distinct – that is, for cases where they are not allographs. For example, petite capital {{angle bracket|ʀ}} represents a [[uvular trill]] in IPA, and {{angle bracket|ɢ}} a [[voiced uvular plosive]]; capital {{angle bracket|R}} and {{angle bracket|G}} have no defined meaning in IPA, but are commonly used as wildcards for '[[Sonorant|resonant]]' and '[[Semivowel|glide]]'. Thus using formatting to replicate {{angle bracket|ʀ}} would not be appropriate in phonetic notation, because if the formatting were lost, data would be lost and the text would change in meaning.

[[File:Superscript small cap W.png|thumb|A small-cap ''W'' may be distinct from a lowercase ''w'' in italic typeface, as in this obsolete Americanist phonetic notation.]]

The petite-capital characters defined by Unicode for letters of the basic Latin alphabet are as follows. 
Shaded cells mark petite capitals that are not very distinct from minuscules in roman typeface, but they may be distinct in italic typeface, as is used in some phonetic notation.

{| class=wikitable style=text-align:center;
|-
! ||A||B||C||D||E||F||G||H||I||J||K||L||M||N||O||P||Q||R||S||T||U||V||W||X||Y||Z
|-
| baseline||ᴀ||ʙ||ᴄ||ᴅ||ᴇ||ꜰ||ɢ||ʜ||ɪ||ᴊ||ᴋ||ʟ||ᴍ||ɴ||ᴏ||ᴘ||ꞯ||ʀ||ꜱ||ᴛ||ᴜ||ᴠ||ᴡ||{{no|–}}||ʏ||ᴢ
|-
| superscript|| {{yes|*}} ||𐞄
!
| {{yes|*}} || {{yes|*}} || {{no|–}}||𐞒||𐞖||ᶦ|| {{no|–}}|| {{no|–}}||ᶫ|| {{no|–}}||ᶰ
!
| {{yes|*}} || {{no|–}}||𐞪
!
| {{no|–}}||ᶸ
! || || 
|𐞲
!
|-
| overscript** || || 
!
|| || || ||◌ᷛ|| || || || ||◌ᷞ||◌ᷟ||◌ᷡ
!
|| || ||◌ᷢ
!
|| || 
! || ||
||
!
|}

<nowiki>*</nowiki> Superscript versions of petite-capital '''ᴀ''', '''ᴅ''', '''ᴇ''' and '''ᴘ''' have been provisionally assigned for inclusion in a future version of the Unicode Standard.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Additional draft repertoire for provisionally assigned code points for Unicode |url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2024/24268-n5291-post-17-chart.pdf|publisher=[[Unicode Consortium]]|date= 2024-11-26}}</ref>

<nowiki>**</nowiki> Although the overscript (combining superscript) characters are identified as 'small capitals' in Unicode, there are no corresponding capital overscript characters that they contrast with.

Additionally, a few less-common Latin characters, several [[Greek alphabet|Greek]] characters, and a single [[Cyrillic]] character used in Latin-based phonetic notation also have petite capitals encoded:

{| class=wikitable style=text-align:center
|-
| colspan="26" |Extended Latin{{efn|Two of the petite capitals, ʁ and ꭆ, have no corresponding capital letter in Unicode. Two of the superscript petite capitals, 𐞀 and ꟸ, have no corresponding baseline petite capitals in Unicode.}}
|-
! ||{{not a typo|Ꜳ}}||Æ||(Ƀ)||Ð||Ǝ||Ɠ||ᵷ (⅁)
! Ħ||Ɨ||Ʞ||Ł||Ɬ||(И)||Œ||Ɔ||Ȣ||(Я)||ɹ (ꓤ)||{{no|–}}||{{no|–}}||ꝵ||Ʉ||Ɯ||Ʒ
|-
| baseline||{{no|–}}||ᴁ||ᴃ||ᴆ||ⱻ||ʛ||𝼂
| {{no|–}}||ᵻ||𝼐||ᴌ||𝼄||ᴎ||ɶ||ᴐ||ᴕ||ᴙ||ᴚ||ʁ||ꭆ||ꝶ||ᵾ||ꟺ||ᴣ
|-
| superscript||𐞀|| || || || ||𐞔|| 
|ꟸ||ᶧ|| || ||𐞜|| ||𐞣|| || || || ||ʶ|| || || || ||
|}

{| class=wikitable style=text-align:center
|-
| colspan="12" |Greek{{efn|Supported letters, plus those that cannot be substituted with Latin.}}
|-
! ||Γ||Δ||Θ||Λ||Ξ||Π||Ρ||Σ||Φ||Ψ||Ω
|-
| baseline||ᴦ||{{no|–}}||{{no|–}}||ᴧ||{{no|–}}||ᴨ||ᴩ||{{no|–}}||{{no|–}}||ᴪ||ꭥ
|}

[[File:UPA sc and lc Cyrillic L.svg|thumb|upright|The UPA small-cap ''ᴫ'' (left) and lower-case ''л'' (right) are distinct in italic typeface, which is how the UPA is typeset.]]

There is little call for small caps in Cyrillic, as there would be little graphic difference between small caps and lowercase. However, Unicode does provide for one small cap Cyrillic letter for use in the [[Uralic Phonetic Alphabet]] (UPA), where small caps and lowercase are distinct in italic typeface

{| class=wikitable style=text-align:center
|-
| colspan="2" |Cyrillic{{efn|The petite-capital Cyrillic letter may be indistinguishable from the lowercase in roman font. However, it is distinct in its italic form, which is how it is normally typeset in phonetic notation.}}
|-
! || Л
|-
| baseline|| ''ᴫ''
|}

==== Labels<span class="anchor" id="In Unicode standards"></span> ====
The [[Unicode Consortium]] has a typographical convention of using small caps for its formal names for symbols, in running text. For example, the name of {{unichar|0416|name=none}} is conventionally shown as {{smallcaps all|CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER ZHE}}.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode15.0.0/ |title=The Unicode Standard 15.0.0 |date=13 September 2022 |publisher=The Unicode Consortium |page=968 |chapter=Appendix A, Notational Conventions |chapter-url=https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode15.0.0/appA.pdf}}</ref>