1. Yale Small Capitals and Yale Web Small Capitals both feature small caps that are slightly taller than normal. This permits the small caps to be used in text for acronyms where small caps would normally be too small. Another advantage of the taller small caps is that they are more easily distinguished from lowercase letters, in the instance, for example, of setting plurals of acronyms like “NGOs,” where the “s” might otherwise be read as an additional character in the acronym.

2. In Yale Web Small Capitals there are no full caps available, but small caps are accessed from both the shift and unshift keyboard positions. This means that the small caps set for printed text will translate as all caps when viewed on the Web. This innovation supports fine typography for print while permitting an easy translation to the Web.

3. A small amount of positive tracking is built into both small-cap fonts. This should be enough in most instances to make additional tracking unnecessary.

Additional Info

For settings that call for small caps with full-cap initials, the designer must use the Yale Small Capitals font because its kerning table applies proper letter spacing between full-cap and small-cap characters. Note that kerning will not be applied between the caps in YaleDesign-Roman and the small caps in the Yale WebSmallCaps font because typesetting programs cannot automatically apply kerning between characters from different fonts. Both small-cap fonts come with old-style figures, which should be used in small-cap text settings with numerals embedded.

For additional guidance regarding the use of this font or for design or typographic advice, please contact John Gambell in the Office of the Yale University Printer.