(Large and) Small OpenType Caps

[DavidH]

Reiterating an old request: support under Character Appearance for OpenType "Small Caps" as the notion is understood by applications giving us access to OpenType Typography options through Apple's Show Fonts panel via their own Font Menus. I.e., lower case would become small caps while upper case would remain large caps, as when typing in a PostScript or TrutType OSF font. More generally, it would be helpful if any variation supported for other apps through the typography subpanel of Apple's fonts panel could be available as a Feature in the Appearance palette. (The list of options would vary, I suppose, from font to font.) For me this remains the most awkward gap in Mellel's support for OpenType.

[rpcameron]

The true problem with this is that Mellel does not properly support OpenType small caps. There are normally 3 options to caps: All cap, small caps and all small caps. Mellel only supports OpenType "All small caps". The "Case" options in the in the character style dialog offers "All Caps" and "Small Caps", but the handling of this is done through Mellel, and not through OpenType features. (If this is incorrect, please feel free to let me know.)

In the OpenType features selection dropdown, there is an option for "All Small Caps", which uses the OpenType feature to create small caps. However, Mellel's implementation of this is flawed, since it only implements all small caps. This means that even characters that are manually input as caps would be converted to small caps—not the expected behavior. One would expect small caps to honor the explicit caps. Until Mellel properly supports OpenType small caps, one must resort to workarounds.

Presently, I create a style variation for OpenType small caps, and only apply it to the lowercase characters; the uppercase characters use the base style in order to ensure they remain proper caps. Mellel's "Small Caps" "Case" option is not a real option, because it does not use OpenType small caps, and therefore the proportions are slightly off.

[nicka]

Surely this is the kind of thing that could be coded in an afternoon and put in a quick point release. But we've been asking nicely and waiting -- for years. It's infuriating.

It's also annoying that we've been waiting for years for text tracking, which is also necessary for the proper use of small caps in many circumstances.

[signinstranger]

Surely this is the kind of thing that could be coded in an afternoon and put in a quick point release. But we've been asking nicely and waiting -- for years. It's infuriating.

Amen to that.

[rpcameron]

Although I just reported the previous post for off-topic-ness, it does again raise the question of Mellel's small caps.

Mellel's small caps implementation seems to replace all characters with small caps, not only lowercase letters. It seems that Mellel is not only using the 'smcp' table for small caps (if at all), but instead using 'c2sc' (either alone or in conjunction with 'smcp') such that all characters are rendered in small caps.

I still have yet to hear anything from RedleX about why Mellel's small caps implementation does not match the specification, nor why it behaves the way it does.

Anyone? Beuller? Beuller? ...

[Boban]

This is one obstacle I'd love to see overcome. I have used Mellel to publish a number of articles and chapters. Many publishers are delighted when you can produce 'camera-ready' copy, but this problem prevents me from using small caps altogether (which I'd like to do).

Best,

B.

[rpcameron]

This is one obstacle I'd love to see overcome. I have used Mellel to publish a number of articles and chapters. Many publishers are delighted when you can produce 'camera-ready' copy, but this problem prevents me from using small caps altogether (which I'd like to do).

A workaround I use is to set a character variation to small caps, and use thar for all but the initial letter. True, some manual adjustment may be needed to scale the initial letter a little, but that is not often the case.