Template:Smallcaps

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{{Smallcaps}} will display the lowercase part of most text as a soft format of typographical small caps.
For example: {{Smallcaps|Beware of Dog}} → Beware of Dog.

The template works for most scripts that have casing, with the exception of half of the Greek alphabet (namely the unaccented letters α β γ δ θ λ μ ρ σ (but not ς) φ χ ω).

This template should be avoided or used sparingly in articles, as small caps should be avoided and reduced to one of the other title cases or normal case, and that markup should be kept simple.

Smallcaps should not be used for the abbreviations BC, AD, BCE, CE, etc.

For display of acronyms/initialisms in small caps, use {{Smallcaps2}} (a.k.a. {{sc2}}) instead.

Usage

Your source text is not altered in the output, only the way it is displayed on the screen: a copy-paste of the text will give the small caps sections in their original form; similarly, an older or non-CSS browser will only display the original text on screen.

Code

{{Smallcaps|Utada}} Hikaru

Displayed

Utada Hikaru

Pasted

Utada Hikaru

This template is therefore intended for the use of caps as a typographic style, such as rendering family names in bibliographies in small caps to distinguish them from given names. It should not be used for acronyms or abbreviations which are supposed to be capitalized regardless of style. For such cases, use {{Smallcaps2}}.

Technical notes

• Diacritics (å, ç, é, ğ, ı, ñ, ø, ş, ü, etc.) are handled. However, because text formatting is performed by each reader's browser and fonts, inconsistencies in CSS implementations can lead to some browsers not converting certain rare diacritics.
• Use of this template does not generate any automatic categorization. As with most templates, if the argument contains an = sign, the sign should be replaced with {{=}}, or the whole argument be prefixed with |1=. And for wikilinks, you need to use piping. There is a parsing problem with MediaWiki which causes unexpected behavior when a template with one style is used within a template with another style.
• This template will not affect the use of HTML character entities like  .
• Technically, the template is a wrapper for: font-variant: small-caps.
• A potential alternative CSS approach, font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;, has not been used because it did not work in Internet Explorer 5 and 6, and it is implemented inconsistently in others: it copy-pastes as the original text in Firefox, but as the altered text in Chrome, Safari, Opera, and text-only browsers.

Suppressing small caps

If you wish to suppress the display of small caps in your browser, as a logged-in user, you can make an edit to your common.css reading:

span.smallcaps { font-feature-settings: 'smcp' !important; }

Examples

	Code	Display (screen)
Y	{{Smallcaps|The ''Name'' of the 2nd Game}}	The Name of the 2nd Game
Y	Leonardo {{Smallcaps|DiCaprio}} (born 1974)	Leonardo DiCaprio (born 1974)
Y	José {{Smallcaps|Álvarez de Toledo y Gonzaga}}	José Álvarez de Toledo y Gonzaga
Y	{{Smallcaps|Nesbø, Vågen, Louÿs, Zúñiga, Kabaağaçlı}}	Nesbø, Vågen, Louÿs, Zúñiga, Kabaağaçlı
When your text uses an = sign:
N	{{Smallcaps|You and Me = Us}}	{{{1}}}
Y	{{Smallcaps|You and Me = Us}}	You and Me = Us
Y	{{Smallcaps|You and Me {{=}} Us}}	You and Me = Us
Y	{{Smallcaps|1=You and Me = Us}}	You and Me = Us
When your text uses a template:
N	in {{Smallcaps|Fiddler's {{Green{{!}}Green}}}} forever	Green}} forever
Y	in {{Smallcaps|1=Fiddler's {{Green|Green}}}} forever	in Fiddler's Green forever
Y	in {{Smallcaps|Fiddler's {{Green|Green}}}} forever	in Fiddler's Green forever
Y	{{Green|1=in {{Smallcaps|Fiddler's Green}} forever}}	in Fiddler's Green forever
Y	{{Colors|green|yellow|3=in {{Smallcaps|Fiddler's Green}} forever}}	in Fiddler's Green forever
When your text uses a | pipe:
N	{{Smallcaps|Before|afteR}}	Before
N	{{Smallcaps|1=Before{{!}}afteR}}	afteR
Y	{{Smallcaps|Before|afteR}}	Before|afteR
When your text uses a link:
N	[[{{Smallcaps|Mao}} Zedong]]	[[Mao Zedong]]
Y	[[w:Mao Zedong|Mao Zedong|{{Smallcaps|Mao}} Zedong]]	Mao Zedong|Mao Zedong

Comparison of the case transformation templates

Template	Shortcut	Purpose	Example	Output	Copy-pastes as
{{Smallcaps}}	{{sc1}} {{SC}}	No conversion, small-caps display, mixed case. No font size change (acronyms are unaffected). Common mixed-case heading style (not in Wikipedia). Uses: Rendering publication titles in citation styles that require them in small-caps.	{{sc1|UNICEF}} and 312 {{sc1|BCE}} {{sc1|Mixed Case}}	UNICEF and 312 BCE Mixed Case	UNICEF and 312 BCE Mixed Case
{{Smallcaps2}}	{{sc2}}	No conversion, small-caps display, mixed case. Slightly reduced font size. This is the conventional display of smallcaps for acronyms/initialisms in modern book typography. Other uses: Unicode character names.	{{sc2|UNICEF}} and 312 {{sc2|BCE}} {{sc2|Mixed Case}}	UNICEF and 312 BCE Mixed Case	UNICEF and 312 BCE Mixed Case
{{Smallcaps all}}	{{sc}}	Lowercase conversion, small-caps display, all uppercase. The size of lowercase letters. Uses: Stressed syllables (in {{Respell}}); and ???. : Default use will permanently change UPPER- or Mixed-Case data, does not work consistently across different browsers, and is not compatible with named HTML character entities.	{{sc|UNICEF}} and 312 {{sc|BCE}} {{sc|Mixed Case}}	Template:Sc and 312 Template:Sc Template:Sc	unicef and 312 bce mixed case (in many browsers)
{{Allcaps}}	{{caps}}	No conversion, all-caps display. The size of uppercase letters. Uses: ???.	{{caps|UNICEF}} and 312 {{caps|BCE}} {{caps|Mixed Case}}	Template:Caps and 312 Template:Caps Template:Caps	UNICEF and 312 BCE Mixed Case
{{Nocaps}}		No conversion, all-lowercase display. The size of lowercase letters. Uses: ???.	{{nocaps|UNICEF}} and 312 {{nocaps|BCE}} {{nocaps|Mixed Case}}	Template:Nocaps and 312 Template:Nocaps Template:Nocaps	UNICEF and 312 BCE Mixed Case

Templatedata

TemplateData for Smallcaps

Displays the lowercase part of inputted text as small caps

Template parameters[Edit template data]

This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Text	1	Text to be rendered in small caps	String	required

See also

• {{Smallcaps2}}

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Smallcaps/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (create | mirror) and testcases (create) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.