Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 30, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
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 several steps, as follows:
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:
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (271) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Adjusting Small Caps Text.
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2020-05-30 12:00:33
If you just want easy access to toggle Small Caps without necessarily setting all the intended words to initial caps, you can place a Small Caps button on a toolbar. To do so (and this is way simpler than it looks from all the text below):
1. Right-click any toolbar (or click the Tools menu) and select Customize.
2. The Customize dialog box opens. Click the Commands tab.
3. Under the Categories pane, select Format.
4. Under the Commands pane, approximately a third of the way down, find Small Caps.
5. Drag the Small Caps button to a desired toolbar, such as the Formatting toolbar.
6. In case you didn't place it exactly where you want it, you can drag it to a different position while the Customize box is open.
7. Click the Close button.
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