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In typography, text or font in all caps (short for " all capitals") contains without any lowercase letters. For example: All caps text can be seen in legal documents, , newspaper , and the titles on book covers. Short strings of words in capital letters appear bolder and "louder" than mixed case, and this is sometimes referred to as "screaming" or "shouting".; All caps can also be used to indicate that a given word is an acronym.
Studies have been conducted on the readability and legibility of all caps text. Scientific testing from the 20th century onward has generally indicated that all caps text is less legible and readable than lower-case text. In addition, switching to all caps may make text appear hectoring and obnoxious for cultural reasons, since all-capitals is often used in transcribed speech to indicate that the speaker is shouting. All caps text is common in comic books, as well as on older teleprinter and radio transmission systems, which often do not indicate letter case at all.
In professional documents, a commonly preferred alternative to all caps text is the use of small caps to emphasise key names or acronyms (for example, Text in Small Caps), or the use of italic type or (more rarely) bold text. In addition, if all caps must be used it is customary to slightly widen the spacing between the letters, by around 10 percent of the point height. This practice is known as tracking or letterspacing. Some digital fonts contain alternative spacing metrics for this purpose.
Capital letters have been widely used in printed headlines from the early days of newspapers until the 1950s. In the 1990s, more than three-quarters of newspapers in the western world used lower-case letters in headline text. Discussion regarding the use of all caps for headlines centers on the greater emphasis offered by all caps versus the greater legibility offered by lower-case letters. Colin Wheildon conducted a scientific study with 224 readers who analyzed various headline styles and concluded that "Headlines set in capital letters are significantly less legible than those set in lower case."
Some Soviet computers, such as Radio-86RK, Vector-06C, Agat-7, use 7-bit character encoding called KOI-7N2, where capital Russian letters replace lower-case Latin letters in the ASCII table, so can display both alphabets, but all caps only. Mikrosha is switchable to KOI-7N1, in this mode, it can display both caps and lower-case, but in Russian only. Other Soviet computers, such as BK0010, MK 85, Corvette and Agat-9, use 8-bit encoding called KOI-8, they can display both Russian and Latin letters in caps and lower-case.
Many, but not all, NES games use all caps because of tile graphics, where charset and tiles share the same ROM. Game designers often choose to have less characters in favor of more tiles.
With the advent of the bulletin board system, or BBS, and later the Internet, typing messages in all caps commonly became closely identified with "shouting" or attention-seeking behavior, and may be considered rude. Its equivalence to shouting traces back to at least 1984 and before the Internet, back to printed typography usage of all capitals to mean shouting.
For this reason, etiquette generally discourages the use of all caps when posting messages online. While all caps can be used as an alternative to rich-text "bolding" for a single word or phrase, to express emphasis, repeated use of all caps can be considered "shouting" or irritating.
Some aspects of Microsoft's Metro design language involve the use of all caps headings and titles. This has received particular attention when menu and ribbon titles appeared in all caps in Visual Studio 2012 and Office 2013, respectively. Critics have compared this to a computer program shouting at its user. Information technology journalist Lee Hutchinson described Microsoft's using the practice as "LITERALLY TERRIBLE ... it doesn't so much violate OS X's design conventions as it does take them out behind the shed, pour gasoline on them, and set them on fire."
In programming, writing in all caps (possibly with replacing spaces) is an identifier naming convention in many programming languages that symbolizes that the given identifier represents a constant.
Legal writing expert Bryan A. Garner has described the practice as "ghastly". A 2020 study found that all caps in legal texts is ineffective and is, in fact, harmful to older readers. In 2002, a US court spoke out against the practice, ruling that simply making text all-capitals has no bearing on whether it is clear and easily readable:
According to Tinker, "As early as 1914, Starch reported that material set in Roman lower case was read somewhat faster than similar material printed in all capitals."D. Starch, Advertising, 1914, Chicago: Scott, Foresman, quoted in Miles Tinker, Bases for Effective Reading, 1965, Minneapolis, Lund Press. p. 136. Another study in 1928 showed that "all-capital text was read 11.8 percent slower than lower case, or approximately 38 words per minute slower",. Quoted in Miles Tinker, Bases for Effective Reading, 1965, Minneapolis, Lund Press. p. 136. and that "nine-tenths of adult readers consider lower case more legible than all capitals".Miles Tinker, Bases for Effective Reading, 1965, Minneapolis, Lund Press. p. 136.
A 1955 study by Miles Tinker showed that "all-capital text retarded speed of reading from 9.5 to 19.0 percent for the 5 and 10-minute time limits, and 13.9 percent for the whole 20-minute period".M.A. Tinker, "The Effect of Slanted Text upon the Readability of Print." 1954, Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 45, 287–291, quoted in Miles Tinker, Bases for Effective Reading, 1965, Minneapolis, Lund Press. p. 136. Tinker concluded that, "Obviously, all-capital printing slows reading to a marked degree in comparison with Roman lower case."
Tinker provides the following explanations for why all capital printing is more difficult to read:
All caps text should be eliminated from most forms of composition, according to Tinker:
Colin Wheildon stated that there is an "apparent consensus" that lower-case text is more legible, but that some editors continue to use all caps in text regardless. In his studies of all caps in , he states that, "Editors who favor capitals claim that they give greater emphasis. Those who prefer lower case claim their preferences gives greater legibility." Wheildon, who informs us that "When a person reads a line of type, the eye recognizes letters by the shapes of their upper halves", asserts that recognizing words in all caps "becomes a task instead of a natural process". His conclusions, based on scientific testing in 1982–1990, are: "Headlines set in capital letters are significantly less legible than those set in lower case."
John Ryder, in the Case for Legibility, stated that "Printing with capital letters can be done sufficiently well to arouse interest and, with short lines, reading at a slowed speed is possible – but in principle too many factors of low legibility are involved."
Other critics are of the opinion that all caps letters in text are often "too tightly packed against each other". (2025). 9781856694742, Laurence King Publishing. ISBN 9781856694742
Namely, the upper-case letters are globally simpler than their lower-case counterpart. For example, they lack ascenders and . Since they are built from fewer positional and building elements (e.g. a smaller grid pertaining to minimalist digital fonts), they are more fragile to small changes.
These variations, generally involuntary but sometimes induced on purpose, are caused by a misinterpretation (the information is transferred) or by a deterioration (the data is lost, in the analysis wording). They can occur horizontally and/or vertically, while misreading (without this extra effort or time), or during a delicate scanning of characters (from a damaged image that needs further contextual text correction).
Depending on the typeface, these similarities accidentally create various duplicates (even quite briefly and without realizing it when reading). E.g. H/A, F/E or I/T by adding a bar; P/R, O/Q, even C/G from similar errors; V/U, D/O, even B/S while rounding the shape; and more deformations implying mixings.
Adding digits in all caps styled texts may multiply these confusions, which is one aim of Leet (intentional pseudo duplicates) and can provide simple means of Steganography (often numbers).
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