Template:Smallcaps

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This template is used on approximately 21,000 pages and changes may be widely noticed. Test changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

Shortcuts

This template uses TemplateStyles:

Template:Smallcaps/styles.css^[e]

{{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: ΐ ΰ.

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

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

Usage

This template should not be used in citation templates such as Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2, because it includes markup that will pollute the COinS metadata they produce; see Wikipedia:COinS.

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}}.

Small caps should not be used for the abbreviations BC, AD, BCE, CE, etc., per MOS:ERA.

As of February 2016,^[update] this template cannot be used in citation templates like {{Cite journal}} to small-cap author names or titles of works in citation styles that call for such typography. See "Notes", below for details.

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 should 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.
Do not use this inside Citation Style 1 or Citation Style 2 templates, or this template's markup will be included in the COinS metadata. This means that reference management software such as Zotero will have entries corrupted by the markup. For example, if {{smallcaps}} is used to format the surname of Bloggs, Joe in {{cite journal}}, then Zotero will store the name as <span style="font-variant:small-caps;">Bloggs</span>, Joe. This is incorrect metadata. If the article that you are editing uses a citation style that includes small caps, either format the citation manually (see examples below) or use a citation template that specifically includes small caps in its formatting.
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 is implemented inconsistently in browsers: 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-variant-caps: normal !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, use \| as you would need to do in any template parameter value:
Y	{{Smallcaps\|Before\|afteR}}	Before\|afteR
When your text uses a link:^{[Table 1]}
N	[[{{Smallcaps\|Mao}} Zedong]]	[[Mao Zedong]]
Y	[[Mao Zedong\|{{Smallcaps\|Mao}} Zedong]]	Mao Zedong

^ As of May 2023, the preferred example fails due to flaws in Mediawiki (phabricator issue T200704) if there are no prior uses of {{smallcaps}} on the page outside links.

Note that most of these uses are not sanctioned by the WP:Manual of Style and should be avoided in article prose.

Reasons to use small caps

Small caps are useful for encyclopedic and typographical uses including:

To lighten ALL-CAPS surnames mandated by citation styles such as Harvard

Note that this template should not be used inside CS1 or CS2 citation templates, such as {{cite book}} or {{citation}}; see #Notes above for details and alternatives.

Piccadilly has been compared to "a Parisian boulevard" (Dickens 1879).
Dickens, C. Jr (1879). "Piccadilly" in Dickens's Dictionary of London. London: C. Dickens. OCLC 54321168

To disambiguate Western names and surnames at a glance

Many Hispanic names are tricky to decompose:
- Jorge Luis Borges, but Adolfo Bioy (both filed under "B")
- José Álvarez, Marqués de los Trujillos
And many Hispanic names are better known by their second surname:
- Pablo Ruiz Picasso, Federico García Lorca, Emir Rodríguez Monegal, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
Many names (Martín, Miguel, Ramón, Tomás, etc.) can be either forename or surname:
- Juan Martín Hernández vs. Rafael Martín Vázquez (two ball players)
Hungarian names natively use the surname-first order:
- Petőfi Sándor is usually westernized Sándor Petőfi

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)
- But Edogawa Ranpo (kept due to wordplay with "Edgar Allan Poe") vs. Ranpo Edogawa (some modern uses)
Burmese names ignore the concept of forename/surname, but are adapted in the West:
- Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of General Aung San ("Daw" is honorific, her name takes part of his name)
And some Burmese names are so short they need to retain an honorific prefix (U for Mister, Daw for Madam, Thakin for Master) which is confusable with a forename or a surname:
- U Nu ("Mister Nu"), a.k.a. Thakin Nu ("Master Nu")

To cite Unicode character names correctly without unwanted emphasizing.

Such names are required to be written in capitals by the Unicode standard. Use {{Smallcaps2}}, not {{Smallcaps}}, for this: In running text, "U+022A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH DIAERESIS AND MACRON" is a less visually distracting alternative to "U+022A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH DIAERESIS AND MACRON". Unicode names should not be represented in mixed case, e.g. as {{Smallcaps}}.

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
Deprecated {{Smallcaps all}}		Warning: Use of the {{Smallcaps all}} template will corrupt upper- or mixed-case data, by permanently converting it to lowercase for users of many browsers. Lowercase conversion, small-caps display, all uppercase. The size of lowercase letters. Uses: Stressed syllables (in {{Respell}}); and ???.	`{{Smallcaps all\|UNICEF}} and 312 {{Smallcaps all\|BCE}}` `{{Smallcaps all\|Mixed Case}}`	UNICEF and 312 BCE MIXED CASE	unicef and 312 bce mixed case (in many browsers)
{{Allcaps}}	{{caps}}	No conversion, all-caps display. The size of uppercase letters. Uses: Text is displayed in all caps, while copy-and-paste preserves the capitalization of the original text.	`{{caps\|UNICEF}} and 312 {{caps\|BCE}}` `{{caps\|Mixed Case}}`	UNICEF and 312 BCE Mixed Case	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}}`	UNICEF and 312 BCE Mixed Case	UNICEF and 312 BCE Mixed Case

Templatedata

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Smallcaps in articles based on its 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