---
name: Small caps
slug: small-caps
category: typography
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
definition: Capital letters drawn at roughly lowercase height, with weight
  adjusted to match, so an abbreviation does not shout inside running text.
aliases:
  - name: smallcaps
  - name: SC
    source: opentype
  - name: "font-variant-caps: small-caps"
    source: css
tags:
  - fonts
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - abbreviation
    - all-caps
    - petite-caps
  variantOf: []
  partOf: []
  seeAlso:
    - drop-cap
implementations: []
sources:
  - title: "Practical Typography: Small caps"
    url: https://practicaltypography.com/
  - title: "MDN: OpenType font features"
    url: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Guides/Fonts/OpenType_fonts
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: setting acronyms inside body text without shouting
---

An acronym set in full capitals inside a paragraph is a stack of tall letters in
a line of short ones, and the eye reads it as emphasis whether or not any was
intended. Small caps solve that by giving the same letters roughly the height of
the lowercase around them. The sentence keeps its even colour and the
abbreviation stops raising its voice.

The word "drawn" is doing real work in the definition. True small caps are
separate glyphs the type designer cut: shrinking a capital thins its strokes and
narrows its proportions, so the type designer compensates by widening the
letters and keeping the stroke weight of the lowercase. That is the whole
difference between small caps and faux small caps, and it is visible as soon as
the two sit side by side, because scaled capitals look pale next to the text
they are embedded in.

In CSS the feature is reached through `font-variant-caps`. The value
`small-caps` converts lowercase letters; `all-small-caps` converts capitals as
well, which is the one to use for an acronym typed as `NASA`, since the markup
keeps the real string for search, copy, and screen readers while only the
rendering changes. Both map onto the OpenType features `smcp` and `c2sc`. If the
font has neither, browsers synthesize the effect by scaling capitals, so the
property never fails outright, it quietly degrades to the fake. This specimen's
own typeface is one of those: it carries no small-cap glyphs, so what the demo
renders is the browser's scaled approximation, and the caption says so.

Small caps belong to running text, in abbreviations, in the first few words
after a [drop cap](/drop-cap), and in running heads. They are a poor choice for
anything long, because a paragraph entirely in small caps loses the ascenders
and descenders that make word shapes recognisable, which is the same reason all
capitals reads slowly.