- From: (wrong string) äper <christoph.paeper@tu-clausthal.de>
- Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 09:05:21 +0100
- To: <www-style@w3.org>
Sander Tekelenburg:
>
> I expected {font-variant: small-caps} to mean change text to small
capitals.
> It doesn't. Only lowercase characters are transformed. Capitals remain
> captials.
Actually nothing is transformed (in opposite to the text-transform
property), but a different font variant is being used, hence the name.
Search through your installed fonts: most likely you'll find some suffixed
by "SC" or even "Small Caps". If such is not available for the current
font-family, which is very often the case with free fonts (e.g. those
bundled with Windows), UAs shall emulate it as described in CSS2-REC 15.2.3.
OTOH there are many fonts from hobbyists that only have small caps, because
it's easier to scale the uppercase letters down than to create 26+ new ones.
> I believe I understand the logic behind that now, but no thanks to the
specs
I think if you read it carefully, you can perfectly understand it from the
spec: "[...] lowercase letters look similar to the uppercase ones, but in a
smaller size [...]" I'm not against a clarification, though.
> "Note that font-variant does <EM>not</EM> automatically imply a
> text-transform.
That's correct ...
> For instance, {font-variant: small caps} only applies to lowercase text.
... that's not ...
> To have it apply to capitals, {text-transform: lowercase} must be added."
... that neither.
It *does* in fact affect all letters, but most likely not visibly, because
capitals in general look the same in normal like in small caps variant.
It'll /look/ like it affects all letters when you do what you describe.
Christoph Päper
Received on Monday, 20 January 2003 03:05:22 UTC