in typography, small capitals (usually abbreviated small caps) are lowercase characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters ("capitals") but reduced in height and weight, close to the surrounding lowercase ("small") letters or text figures. note that this is technically not a case-transformation, but a substitution of glyphs, although the effect is often simulated by case-transformation and scaling. small caps are used in running text as a form of emphasis that is less dominant than all uppercase text, and as a method of emphasis or distinctiveness for text alongside or instead of italics, or when boldface is inappropriate. for example, the "text in small caps" appears as tᴇxᴛ ɪɴ sᴍᴀʟʟ ᴄᴀᴘs in small caps. small caps can be used to draw attention to the opening phrase or line of a new section of text, or to provide an additional style in a dictionary entry where many parts must be typographically differentiated.