"Small caps" vs. "All small caps"

[macsailor]

While surfing throught the web, I’ve found a page nice recently that offers two OpenType fonts with real Small Caps for free.
One of the font is a sans serif one (Delicious), the other has small serifes (Fontin). Both contain several font faces as regular, italic, bold, small caps, one also contains a heavy face.

Thanks for the link.

[Ori Redler]

Maria, the setting is for 0.7 of the ascent-decent height of a character. Checking with some OT fonts, this is also the setting used with "real" small caps.

Ori, thanks, the number is understood. I asked for the look. It is smaller and looks worse than it could. What I like about the Japanese and their attitude towards service is: They say, "it is not the best possible solution, but if we have to go this way, we will make it as good as possible". Maybe a setting to 0.74 or so might look better?

It is not essential, but Mellel is about looks to a great deal, isn't it?

Best,
Maria

Why 0.74 and not 0.69 or 0.77? Nothing is carved in stone, but I'm not sure I get the logic of this over that?

[Ori Redler]

Thanks for you answer, Ori...

Martin, I get your point completely (which to me is to prefer OpenType small caps when available and ignore the capitals when applying OpenType).

[Mart°n]

Martin, I get your point completely (which to me is to prefer OpenType small caps when available and ignore the capitals when applying OpenType).

I don’t want to be rollicking but I think it would be nice to have both options:

• OpenType All Small Caps
• OpenType Small Caps

The All Small Caps is useful, when one likes to create a style that transforms otherwise All Caps into All Small Caps. This could be the case, if one writes a lot abbreviations like USA, UNESCO, NATO and prefers to typeset them in All Small Caps so that they won’t visually stand out of the rest of the written text.

[Marco]

I think it would be nice to have both options:

• OpenType All Small Caps
• OpenType Small Caps

I agree completely: this would satisfy all users. I personally need OpenType Small Caps, while I would never again use fake Small Caps.

[mc7121]

I think it would be nice to have both options:

• OpenType All Small Caps
• OpenType Small Caps

I agree completely: this would satisfy all users. I personally need OpenType Small Caps, while I would never again use fake Small Caps.

Same for me: real OpenType Small Caps or none at all. Real Small Caps is a stylistic option to improve the appearance. Faked Small Caps are just ugly and in that sence contraproductive.

[TLS]

The All Small Caps is useful, when one likes to create a style that transforms otherwise All Caps into All Small Caps. This could be the case, if one writes a lot abbreviations like USA, UNESCO, NATO and prefers to typeset them in All Small Caps so that they won’t visually stand out of the rest of the written text.

This has another advantage. If you type, for example, "USA" in caps, but then format it as All Small Caps, in Mellel it will of course appear in small caps. However, if you must export the text to RTF or Word, "USA" will be set in normal caps again. This is a good thing because if you format "usa" (lower case) as small caps in Mellel and then export, "usa" (lower case) will be used again as the formatting is stripped out.

[transalpin]

What I’d love to see in 2.1.3 is the addition of an OpenType Small Caps option:


Would it be very difficult to implement?

Any news on this one?

[defect]

Any news on this one?

Any news on this one?

[donb]

With the aid of a small macro program, such as iKey it is easy to make a macro that will produce a genuine Capital followed by genuine small caps, if you use an Open Type font that makes small caps,

While I agree that it is unfortunate that the Open Type fonts with small caps by and large do not incorporate the provision that the first letter be a Real capital letter, I don't think this should be a priority for a special modification to Mellel, when iKey or some other macro program can automate it for you so easily (and iKey is a very inexpensive program).

Don Broadribb

[ozean]

(and iKey is a very inexpensive program)

Well, 30 US$ is almost as much as you have to pay for Mellel… And I prefer not to install input managers/haxies and other software that wedges itself between apps and systems. Had too many trouble with people having these things installed while I worked as a Mac consultant.

So, my vote would be: implement cross-references and then go for OpenType SmallCaps and OpenType All SmallCaps as soon as possible!

[Mart°n]

While I’m not again input managers in general, I would prefer a built in support for SMALL CAPS. Mellel is all about styles and if you’re used to work with styles and try to keep your documents clean, it is necessary that Mellel supports an SMALL CAPS option. You could of course use some kind of external app that modifies your letter through scripting or other ways but that only leads to the desired appearance but not to the (sometimes) desired clean distinction between content and styles.
One example. You also could use some tools (prior to Mellel’s built in support) to generate ALL CAPS very easily but by doing this, you’ve lost the former present uppercase/lowercase information and you could not revert to a Mixed Caps state. The very same isn’t true for SMALL CAPS but you have to use at least two styles (or ad hoc text) to generate those SMALL CAPS appearance and therefore have to workaround again, if you like to change all the SMALL CAPS words to Mixed Caps words again.
I think, if something is easy to achieve by scripting an external app and therefore generating a workaround, it should be even easier to achieve by scripting (programing) the same feature into the main app. It is even easier as there is already a ugly fake SMALL CAPS feature built in (which should be removed IMHO). So the mechanism of recognizing the uppercase letters and handle them differently from the lowercase ones is already there. But instead of shrinking the lowercase ones, you “simply” * need to change their OpenType option.

That’s why I vote for a built in option ASAP and the removal of the ugly fake SMALL CAPS feature.

* As I’m not a coder, I only could guess that this will be very simple but it may be a bit harder in truth

[signinstranger]

Couldn't agree more. They way small caps in OpenType fonts are currently handled in Mellel is a joke. Apple's stupid Font/Typography Palette is more accessible than this.

[nicka]

That’s why I vote for a built in option

Seconded.

and the removal of the ugly fake small caps feature.

That might be going too far, but I was surprised that Mellel got fake small caps before real mixed caps/small caps.

Also often necessary with small caps (and caps, and numbers) is letterspacing: Robert Bringhurst's advice: "Lettersapce all strings of capitals and small caps and all long strings of digits" (p 30 of The Elements of Typographic Style, version 3.1). If the typography capabilities of Mellel are going to get some attention, then letterspacing should be a priority.

[ozean]

Also often necessary with small caps (and caps, and numbers) is letterspacing: Robert Bringhurst's advice: "Lettersapce all strings of capitals and small caps and all long strings of digits" (p 30 of The Elements of Typographic Style, version 3.1). If the typography capabilities of Mellel are going to get some attention, then letterspacing should be a priority.

Exactly. I worked around letterspacing issues with small caps by using thin spaces, but this is a very crude work around that is not always possible (for example with different typographies of the same word in auto-titles, mentions, TOC etc.)