Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Adjusting Small Caps Text.

Adjusting Small Caps Text

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 28, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

Small caps are a typographic convention in which no lowercase letters are used. Traditionally, the first letter of the word appears a bit larger than the rest of the letters in a word, even though all letters are uppercase. When you use the Small Caps character attribute, Word coverts the letters to their proper appearance.

To convert words properly to small caps, you need to go through the following steps:

Select the current word (or group of words).
Right-click the selection made in step 1. Word displays a context menu.
Click Font from the available options. Word displays the Font dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Font tab of the Font dialog box.

Set the Small Caps character attribute.
Click OK to close the Font dialog box.

If you are using small caps text sparingly in a document, then these steps are rather quick and painless. However, if you are using it quite a bit, then repeatedly performing the steps can get tiresome. The following is a macro you can use to perform these steps automatically:

Sub MakeSmallCaps()
     If Selection.Type = wdSelectionIP Then
          Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdWord, Count:=1
          Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdWord, Count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend
     End If
     Selection.Range.Case = wdTitleWord
     Selection.Font.SmallCaps = True
End Sub

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the WordTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13061) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Adjusting Small Caps Text.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Edits Cause Text to Switch to Odd Fonts

If you have problems with strange fonts showing up when you paste information into a document, it is helpful to ...

Discover More

Using Two Characters as a Drop Cap

Want to add drop caps to your layout? They can provide a nice, appealing design element, but how you actually create the ...

Discover More

Meeting Accessibility and Remediation Testing Requirements

Navigating the perplexing world of accessibility requirements can be confusing. This tip provides some guidance on how to ...

Discover More

Do More in Less Time! Are you ready to harness the full power of Word 2013 to create professional documents? In this comprehensive guide you'll learn the skills and techniques for efficiently building the documents you need for your professional and your personal life. Check out Word 2013 In Depth today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Formatting Currency

If you need to format a number so that it appears as currency, it is not as easy to do in Word as it is in Excel. You can ...

Discover More

Reversed Bolding

If you paste information from one document into another, you may be surprised at the results. If your text changes from ...

Discover More

Underlining Quoted Text

Do you have a document in which you need to convert all the quoted text (text surrounded by quotes) to underlined text? ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is four more than 5?

2020-06-20 22:25:24

Yateen

This is fine but be aware that when Word replaces regular capital letters with small capital letters,
what it really does is to use regular capitals in smaller size---what typographers call fake small caps.
This is clear because those small caps are a bit lighter in colour; true small caps, on the other hand,
are of the same colour as the rest of the text. This is so because they are designed differently:
the shape is that of regular capitals but the strokes that make up the letter are as thick as lowercase letters
(not slightly thinner, as is the case with regular capitals).
Not all fonts come with true small capitals but many do.

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.