Template:Smallcaps/doc

	This is a documentation subpage for Template:Smallcaps. It contains usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

{{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). In addition, the accents in Greek ΐ ΰ are badly placed.

This template should be avoided or used sparingly in articles.

Smallcaps should not be used for the abbreviations BC, AD, BCE, CE, etc., per MOS:ERA, even though they are used in the examples below.

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.
• There is a problem with dotted and dotless I. {{Lang|tr|{{Smallcaps|ı i}}}} may gives you ı ı, although the language is set to Turkish, unless the font including localized glyphs for small caps variant.
• 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 {{fc|green{{!}}Green}}}} forever	in Fiddler's forever
Y	in {{Smallcaps|1=Fiddler's {{fc|green|Green}}}} forever	in Fiddler's Green forever
Y	in {{Smallcaps|Fiddler's {{fc|green|Green}}}} forever	in Fiddler's Green forever
Y	{{fc|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|Hatano}} Wataru]]	[[Hatano Wataru]]
Y	[[Hatano Wataru|{{Smallcaps|Hatano}} Wataru]]	Hatano Wataru

Reasons to use small caps

Small caps are useful for encyclopedic and typographical uses including:

To disambiguate Eastern surnames and given names at a glance

• Most Chinese names and Korean names retain their surname-first order:
  • Mao Zedong fought Chiang Kai-shek
  • The movie Oldboy by Park Chan-wook starring Choi Min-sik was not seen by Kim Il Sung

Especially in Hong Kong and Macao, a Western given name may be added as well:

• Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing

• Most Japanese names are reversed in the West, but not all:
  • (Akira Kurosawa or Motojirō Kajii are usually westernized)
  • But Matsuo Bashō, Ono no Komachi, Kaga no Chiyo (haiku poets known under their given name)
    We do not westernize Japanese names on this site
  • But Edogawa Ranpo (kept due to wordplay with "Edgar Allan Poe") vs. Ranpo Edogawa (some modern uses)

Templatedata

Displays the lowercase part of inputted text as small caps

Template parameters

This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.

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