Petite caps
Encyclopedia
In typography
, petite capitals (usually abbreviated petite caps) are a stylistic letter form, a variant of small caps
. Like small caps, petite caps take the shape of upper-case
("capital") letters, and are usually of appropriate optical weight to harmonize with other text. However, petite caps are smaller still than small caps, typically, half the height of capital letters.
font
standard provides support for transformations from normal letters to petite caps by two feature tags,
Desktop publishing
applications, as well as web browsers,
can use these features to display petite caps.
However, only a few
currently do so.
Cascading Style Sheets
(CSS) language.
However the working draft proposal of 2011
by the W3C, describes CSS rules that would specify text presentation in petite caps,
as well as many other typographic styles.
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
, petite capitals (usually abbreviated petite caps) are a stylistic letter form, a variant of small caps
Small caps
In typography, small capitals are uppercase characters set at the same height and weight as surrounding lowercase letters or text figures...
. Like small caps, petite caps take the shape of upper-case
Letter case
In orthography and typography, letter case is the distinction between the larger majuscule and smaller minuscule letters...
("capital") letters, and are usually of appropriate optical weight to harmonize with other text. However, petite caps are smaller still than small caps, typically, half the height of capital letters.
In computer fonts
The OpenTypeOpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior...
font
Font
In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
standard provides support for transformations from normal letters to petite caps by two feature tags,
pcap and c2pc. A font may use the tag pcap to indicate how to transform lower-case letters to petite caps, and the tag c2pc to indicate how to transform upper-case letters to petite caps.Desktop publishing
Desktop publishing
Desktop publishing is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal computer.The term has been used for publishing at all levels, from small-circulation documents such as local newsletters to books, magazines and newspapers...
applications, as well as web browsers,
can use these features to display petite caps.
However, only a few
currently do so.
In CSS
At this time, there is no direct support for petite caps in web pages using theCascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
(CSS) language.
However the working draft proposal of 2011
by the W3C, describes CSS rules that would specify text presentation in petite caps,
as well as many other typographic styles.