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October 10, 2022
Answered

small caps not working in Illustrator

  • October 10, 2022
  • 3 replies
  • 4530 views

I am trying to use small caps, but it doesn't seem to be working correctly; I tried to look to see if there is a bug but have not found anything. I typed the text WILSON, and when I clicked on the small caps icon, nothing happened. I tried in multiple fonts and formats, but it doesn't change. I verified that small caps are set to 50% in my document setup (it was set to 75%), but my clients original is closer to 50% 

 

Illustrator v 26.5

Mac

 

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Correct answer Bobby Henderson

Typefaces that contain true small capital character sets will have those characters correspond to lowercase letters. First you need to type out the word "WILSON" in mixed case rather than all capitals. With "Wilson" selected, go into the Character palette and select the "Tt" icon for small capitals and apply it. If the type object is in all capitals the small caps function will have no effect on the type object.

The small capitals button will technically work on fonts that don't have a true, native small caps character set, but the results will basically be faked. It just takes uppercase characters and shrinks them to about 75% of their normal size (the results of which often look pretty lousy).

3 replies

Bobby HendersonCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
October 10, 2022

Typefaces that contain true small capital character sets will have those characters correspond to lowercase letters. First you need to type out the word "WILSON" in mixed case rather than all capitals. With "Wilson" selected, go into the Character palette and select the "Tt" icon for small capitals and apply it. If the type object is in all capitals the small caps function will have no effect on the type object.

The small capitals button will technically work on fonts that don't have a true, native small caps character set, but the results will basically be faked. It just takes uppercase characters and shrinks them to about 75% of their normal size (the results of which often look pretty lousy).

Dave Creamer of IDEAS
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 10, 2022

Also, some fonts are in uppercase only.

 

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)
Dave Creamer of IDEAS
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 10, 2022

When you type "WILSON", are you typing it in all caps as you posted?

Also, what font are you using?

 

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)
kglad
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 10, 2022

<moved from using the community >