Inspiring

Question

ALL CAPS and UPPER CASE difference

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
November 16, 2021
3 replies
4453 views

This is really a question about type.

I noticed, typing a couple of words, that there is a spacing difference between setting the words as all caps and settings them individually to upper case. Looking more closely at kerning and tracking in both, I don't see any difference. Character code is also the same.

Try it, in any font, with the words:

EDGAR ALLAN POE (each character typed as upper case)

Edgar Allan Poe (entire selection set to all caps)

1. So why are they spaced differently?

2. What is the best practice in such a case: use individual character upper case or use all caps?

Thanks.

Type

This topic has been closed for replies.

Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

In my experience the tracking changes with the language. If you are writing only in CAPS many fonts react different, as if no language is token than when you use CAPS as style where the letters are written in a normal way but are changed to capital letters via style. In the second case, the spell checker is working ok, in the first not. I know only that language properties can be saved into a font. But I am not deep enough in to come to a full conclusion.

J E L

Community Expert

@sPretzel Yes, I always been aware of this. Personally, I never type the original text in all caps because if I need to switch that text back to title or sentence case using styles, I'd have to go back and retype those words. Using InDesign, I am used to the different kerning when looking at type written in all caps vs. styling with all caps. With some fonts, there is practically no difference. So, I always type or import text in title or sentence case and then apply all caps via a paragraph or character style.

S

sPretzelAuthor

Inspiring

Hi Jain,

Just to be sure I understood correctly:

Personally, I never type the original text in all caps because if I need to switch that text back to title or sentence case using styles, I'd have to go back and retype those words.

By @J E L

You mean you never type the original text as individual uppercase characters?

J E L

Community Expert

@sPretzel Ha, well, I see I broke my own "never say never" rule! To clarify, I don't type in individual uppercase characters when it comes to headlines, subheadings, titles, first words of a paragraph, and so on, in case I, or someone else, needs to switch it to sentence or title case (or small caps). I do type original text that are initials or acronyms (i.e., IBM) in all caps. Does that make sense?

I realize it's probably easy enough (thanks to @Peter Kahrel) to run a find/replace script or GREP style to convert ALL CAPS to another case if needed.

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

It would be built into the font.

Uppercase would be used for typing uppercase letters beside individual letters - like Edgar Allen Poe.

All caps could be a subset of the font - and it treatts EDGAR ALLEN POE differently - in all caps - than it does when typed when using uppercase.

This is probably done by the font designer, so that the font can be used in all caps - with a better spacing arrangement for uppercase letters together.

S

sPretzelAuthor

Inspiring

Hi Eugene,

Thanks for the response. I agree but I would have expected to see kerning or tracking differences between the two versions, because they all indicate the same capital letter character in the font.

rob day

Community Expert

Hi @sPretzel I think as Eugene suggests it is the type designer’s decision. I don’t see it in all fonts–doesn’t happen with Type 1 fonts, and with OTF fonts it seems to depend on the designer:

FontFont’s Eureka (Type 1)

Adobe’s Minion Pro OTF

Emigre’s Vista OTF:

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