All caps

For the songs, see All Caps (Madvillain song) and All Caps (Weathers song).

The name of the railway engine Mallard, set in all capital letters

In typography, text or font in all caps (short for "all capitals") contains capital letters without any lowercase letters. For example:

THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG.

All-caps text can be seen in legal documents, advertisements, newspaper headlines, and the titles on book covers. Short strings of words in capital letters appear bolder and "louder" than mixed case, and this is sometimes referred to as "screaming" or "shouting".[1] All caps can also be used to indicate that a given word is an acronym.

Studies have been conducted on the readability and legibility of all caps text. Scientific testing from the 20th century onward has generally indicated that all caps text is less legible and readable than lower-case text.[2][3] In addition, switching to all caps may make text appear hectoring and obnoxious for cultural reasons, since all-capitals is often used in transcribed speech to indicate that the speaker is shouting.[4] All-caps text is common in comic books, as well as on older teleprinter and radio transmission systems, which often do not indicate letter case at all.[5][6]

In professional documents, a commonly preferred alternative to all caps text is the use of small caps to emphasise key names or acronyms (for example, Text in Small Caps), or the use of italics or (more rarely) bold.[7] In addition, if all caps must be used it is customary to slightly widen the spacing between the letters, by around 10 per cent of the point height. This practice is known as tracking or letterspacing.[8] Some digital fonts contain alternative spacing metrics for this purpose.[9]

  1. ^ Ilene Strizver (2011). "ALL CAPS: To set or not to set?". Fonts.com. Monotype Imaging. Retrieved 21 June 2011.; Cohen, Noam (4 February 2008). "Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC?". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 January 2011. Jason Santa Maria, creative director of Happy Cog Studios, which designs Web sites, detected a basic breach of netiquette. 'Hillary's text is all caps, like shouting,' he said.
  2. ^ Wheildon, Colin (1995). Type and Layout: How Typography and Design Can Get your Message Across – Or Get in the Way. Berkeley: Strathmoor Press. p. 62. ISBN 0-9624891-5-8.
  3. ^ Nielsen, Jakob. "Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes". Nielsen Norman Group. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  4. ^ Butterick, Matthew. "All Caps". Practical Typography.
  5. ^ "Why are military messages in all capitals?". Alternatewars.com. Archived from the original on 4 September 2013. Retrieved 22 January 2013.
  6. ^ "Sprite Comics Tutorial". Tabmok99.mortalkombatonline.com. 10 December 2004. Retrieved 22 January 2013.
  7. ^ Butterick, Matthew. "Small caps". Practical Typography. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  8. ^ Butterick, Matthew. "Letterspacing". Practical Typography. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  9. ^ Lupton, Ellen. "Kerning". Thinking With Type. Archived from the original on 14 April 2018. Retrieved 29 July 2015.