Small capitals are uppercase letter shapes drawn at about the height of lowercase letters. Typographers use them for acronyms in running text (so “NATO” does not shout), for the first words of a chapter, for era abbreviations like ᴀᴅ and ʙᴄ, for names in legal and scholarly writing, and for gentle emphasis without bold or italics.
Word processors fake small caps with a font setting that is lost when text is copied. Unicode, however, contains small capital letters for almost every Latin letter – most come from the International Phonetic Alphabet (where ʀ is the French uvular r) and the Phonetic Extensions block. This generator replaces each letter with its small-cap character, so the effect survives in places that do not allow formatting, like Instagram bios, Discord names and comments.
Two letters are special. There is no small capital X in Unicode, so x stays as it is (it already looks like one), and the small capital Q is so new that few fonts support it, so the generator uses the similar-looking ǫ. Choose “keep capitals full size” to imitate true typographic small caps, where initial capitals stay large.
How to use the Small Caps Generator
- Text to convert
- Capital letters
Everything is calculated in your browser, so results appear instantly and nothing you type is sent to a server.
How it works
Each letter A–Z or a–z is mapped to the corresponding small-capital character from a 26-entry table. In “keep capitals” mode, uppercase letters are left unchanged so that only lowercase letters shrink.
Worked example
“Hello world” becomes ʜᴇʟʟᴏ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ: h → ʜ (U+029C), e → ᴇ (U+1D07), l → ʟ (U+029F), o → ᴏ (U+1D0F), w → ᴡ (U+1D21), r → ʀ (U+0280), d → ᴅ (U+1D05). With capitals kept it is Hᴇʟʟᴏ Wᴏʀʟᴅ.
Small caps alphabet
| A–I | J–R | S–Z |
|---|---|---|
| ᴀ ʙ ᴄ ᴅ ᴇ ꜰ ɢ ʜ ɪ | ᴊ ᴋ ʟ ᴍ ɴ ᴏ ᴘ ǫ ʀ | ꜱ ᴛ ᴜ ᴠ ᴡ x ʏ ᴢ |
Unicode styled text and accessibility
Styled letters are separate Unicode characters, not a font, which is why they survive copy and paste into bios, chats and comments. The price is accessibility and searchability: screen readers may read them as “mathematical fraktur capital G” or skip them, and search engines and in-app search may not match them to ordinary words. Use them for decoration – a name, a short heading – and keep important information in normal text.
Formula
a → ᴀ, b → ʙ, c → ᴄ … (Unicode Phonetic Extensions and IPA characters)
No small capital exists for x, so it stays x; q uses ǫ
Worked example
Inputs — Text to convert: Hello world; Capital letters: Convert everything to small caps.
Results — Small caps text = ʜᴇʟʟᴏ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ; Other style = Hᴇʟʟᴏ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ; Ordinary uppercase for comparison = HELLO WORLD; Characters = 11; Letters without a small-cap form = 0.
Key terms
- Small capitals
- Capital letter shapes at lowercase height.
- x-height
- The height of lowercase letters such as x, which small caps approximate.
- IPA
- International Phonetic Alphabet; many small-cap letters come from it.
Frequently asked questions
How do I type small caps?
Paste your text here and copy the result – it works anywhere Unicode text is accepted.
Why is x not changed?
Unicode has no small capital X; the lowercase x already has the same shape.
What does “Hello world” look like in small caps?
ʜᴇʟʟᴏ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ, or Hᴇʟʟᴏ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ if capitals are kept full size.
Are Unicode small caps the same as the Word small caps setting?
They look similar, but Word’s setting is formatting that disappears in plain text; Unicode small caps are separate characters.
Can screen readers read small caps text?
Often not well – characters like ᴀ are phonetic symbols and may be read out individually. Avoid them for essential information.
Are there small-cap digits?
No – digits are left as they are.