Text style capitalisation change

[LaraJ]

Hi,

Is it possible to change a text style from All Caps to Title Caps (so only the first letter is capitalised), although the original text is not capitalised? Apparently, simply applying Title Caps to a word doesn't offer the possibility of updating the text style. Neither does it seem to be an option for Title Caps in the Text Style panel.

Thanks!

[Old Bruce]

53 minutes ago, LaraJ said:

Is it possible to change a text style from All Caps to Title Caps (so only the first letter is capitalised), although the original text is not capitalised? Apparently, simply applying Title Caps to a word doesn't offer the possibility of updating the text style. Neither does it seem to be an option for Title Caps in the Text Style panel.

There is a difference in the Title Caps versus Small Caps. The Title Caps actually physically changes the letters from Lower Case to Upper Case, the Small Caps only changes the glyphs. Small Caps is like using a different font, the actual letters are unchanged but they do look different. Prove this by copy and pasting into a text editor, something that has no different styles of fonts.

The Text > Capitalization > all-the-various-choices are spilt into two parts, the first two change the look only. The rest change the actual letters.

[melonbird]

I don't understand this answer. Is this a yes or no? I'm making about 1000 graphics using the same template and would like to set one block of text to always have title caps. Clicking "titling" does nothing. Should it?

[MikeTO]

32 minutes ago, melonbird said:

I don't understand this answer. Is this a yes or no? I'm making about 1000 graphics using the same template and would like to set one block of text to always have title caps. Clicking "titling" does nothing. Should it?

What are you trying to achieve?

• Title Case: The First Letter of Major Words are Capitalized?
• Small Caps: THE FIRST LETTER OF EACH WORD IS LARGER?

Title Case is a case conversion and permanently changes characters to the desired case. You cannot define this in a text style.

Small Caps is a character attribute and can be turned on and off. It can be defined in a text style if you like.

[melonbird]

Title caps capitalizes each and every word. It’s a standard option in web design, since internet applications aren’t programmed to know which words are major and which are not. It Would Look Like This For Every Word.

[MikeTO]

1 minute ago, melonbird said:

Title caps capitalizes each and every word. It’s a standard option in web design, since internet applications aren’t programmed to know which words are major and which are not. It Would Look Like This For Every Word.

Affinity and other page layout apps like InDesign don't typically offer an option to capitalize every word and instead offer Title case which differentiates between major and minor words.

If you really want to capitalize every word, reformat the text as English US, Canada, or Australia and then use the Title Case command. There's a shortcoming in Affinity for English other than English UK. Affinity only has a minor word list for English UK so the feature doesn't work as it should for English US, Canada, and Australia.

[melonbird]

Where it this Title Case option you’re talking about? It might work for this particular task I’m doing. I’m on Mac, and I’ve clicked into the styles button besides text and tried every option, including an option called “Titling”, but nothing gives me capitals on major words. Am I looking in the wrong place for this option?

Or is it that the text in question is a list, not a complete sentence?

[MikeTO]

15 minutes ago, melonbird said:

Where it this Title Case option you’re talking about? It might work for this particular task I’m doing. I’m on Mac, and I’ve clicked into the styles button besides text and tried every option, including an option called “Titling”, but nothing gives me capitals on major words. Am I looking in the wrong place for this option?

Or is it that the text in question is a list, not a complete sentence?

Choose Text > Capitalization > Title Case

Note that the first three commands in this menu are character attributes and do the same thing as the options in the Typography panel and Character > Typography section. The other commands, including Title Case, permanently transform the capitalization of the text, changing characters between upper- and lowercase as required.

The Title Exceptions list in Settings is the list of minor words that are exempted from Title Case capitalization. Words like "and" and "the" should not be capitalized. The only English language that has a list of minor words is English UK - all other English users must enter their own title exceptions one by one. I've reported this as an issue to Serif. If you use English US, Canada, or one of the other variants, I suggest making a list of the English exceptions and then duplicating it for your version of English. There's no way to copy the list from one version of English to the other.

[melonbird]

Oh, it’s in a left-click menu! Thanks, I didn’t even realize that was there. Yes, that’s doing what I wanted.

[TravisL]

I kind of have the same question as melonbird. The left-click menu Title case works but I don't understand why the Title Case option under the Paragraph or Character Style menus don't work, since that is what you expect the option to do - Titling doesn't seem to do anything.

Not sure if this deserves another thread but I noticed when I change the Capitalisation in the Paragraph Style menu, if the text is later exported as a PDF the headings will use the case of the original text that was typed into the field, ignoring the capitalisation of the text style - is there a way to control how headings appear in PDFs?

[MikeTO]

7 hours ago, TravisL said:

I kind of have the same question as melonbird. The left-click menu Title case works but I don't understand why the Title Case option under the Paragraph or Character Style menus don't work, since that is what you expect the option to do - Titling doesn't seem to do anything.

Not sure if this deserves another thread but I noticed when I change the Capitalisation in the Paragraph Style menu, if the text is later exported as a PDF the headings will use the case of the original text that was typed into the field, ignoring the capitalisation of the text style - is there a way to control how headings appear in PDFs?

What do you mean by the Title Case option under the Paragraph or Character Style menus? The only Title Case option I'm aware of is in the Text > Capitalization menu.

The Text > Capitalization menu contains two types of commands separated by a divider which is somewhat confusing. The first group of options (Small Caps/All Caps) applies those formatting attributes - you can also select them in the Character panel under Typography or in the Typography panel. Applying those attributes is just formatting and you can turn them back off. The second group of options (lower, upper, toggle, title, and sentence case) transforms the text, permanently changing its case. They don't apply any attributes.

Are you possibly talking about the "Titling" option in the Typography panel which is also available when editing a paragraph or character style? If so, that option will only work for the rare fonts that have Titling characters. Below is a screenshot from my manual that describes this feature.

[walt.farrell]

7 hours ago, TravisL said:

I kind of have the same question as melonbird. The left-click menu Title case works but I don't understand why the Title Case option under the Paragraph or Character Style menus don't work, since that is what you expect the option to do - Titling doesn't seem to do anything.

I think you're talking about Typography > Capitals > Titling in the Paragraph or Character Text Style.

As with all the Typography options, either in Text Styles or in the Character panel, these are for activating specific OpenType features built into the font.

 

[TravisL]

Okay, I think I understand. Though it would be useful to be able to control the Capitalisation within the Paragraph and Character Styles panel. I think that's the expected behaviour for that menu. Would be good to have that feature if possible in future. 🙂

EDIT: MikeTo that screenshot of Titling helps explain it really well! I think what was confusing me is I thought Titling was intended to be the same behaviour as Title Case. So  I think what would be really helpful is if under the Capitalisation section if there was one for Title Case.

Edited August 19, 2024 by TravisL
Forgot to address Titling / Title Case

[walt.farrell]

10 hours ago, TravisL said:

So  I think what would be really helpful is if under the Capitalisation section if there was one for Title Case.

Title Case requires actually changing the characters that were typed, not merely changing how they display. That's why it's in the action part of Text > Capitalization, not in the options part of that menu. But Text Styles merely change the display, not the actual data.

[MaxineD]

I think I have the same original question.

The heading within the book is capitalised. But I don't want it capitalised in the Contents page. Can I change capitalisation in the 'text style' of the Table of Contents (TOC 1:Heading)?

[walt.farrell]

12 hours ago, MaxineD said:

I think I have the same original question.

The heading within the book is capitalised. But I don't want it capitalised in the Contents page. Can I change capitalisation in the 'text style' of the Table of Contents (TOC 1:Heading)?

"Capitalized" is ambiguous. Do you mean Title Case, or ALL CAPS, or something else?  Please provide an example.

[MikeTO]

If you've typed the headings as mixed case and formatted them with the Typography features as all caps, small caps, etc, you can show them as mixed case in the TOC by formatting them as Capitals = default. But if you've typed the headings as all uppercase, you cannot transform them to mixed case in the TOC because the sentence and title case commands are not formatting attributes but transformations.

[MaxineD]

OK - thanks - that's what I thought... don't like having the contents page all capitalised!