Small caps

In typography, small caps (short for small capitals) are uppercase (capital) characters that are printed in a smaller size than normal uppercase characters of the same font. Typically, the height of a small capital will be one ex, the same height as most lowercase characters in the font. Small capitals are not simply scaled-down versions of normal capitals; they normally have a wider aspect ratio to facilitate readability.

Many word processors and text formatting systems include an option to format text in caps and small caps; this leaves uppercase letters as they are but converts lowercase letters to small caps.

Small caps are often used for text that is all uppercase; this makes the run of capital letters seem less "jarring" to the reader. For example, the Atlantic Monthly's style is to use small caps for initialisms of three or more letters; thus: "U.S." and "FDR" in normal caps, but "NATO" in small caps. The initialisms "A.D." and "B.C." are often smallcapped as well. (However, these capitals are in truth hardly ever true small caps, but rather the normal text font shrunk by one or two point sizes. If they were truly small caps at the x-height of the surrounding font, then running text such as "Latvia joined nato on March 29, 2004" would look exceedingly odd!)

Some publishers' house styles, such as those of Newsweek and DC Comics, use small caps to refer to the name of their own publications inside the same or another publication.

The text of a formal monumental inscription or the legend on a coin are often rendered in small caps: "Sir Christopher Wren's tomb in the St Paul's that he designed reads simply si monumentum requiris circumspice."

See also

• All caps
• Mixed case
• Camel case
• Death (Discworld): In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, Death speaks in small caps.

External link

• Definition from about.com