font-variant fonts

[sedigh mohseni]

hi

Is there any separate font for small-caps version of fonts?
if the answer is true , what happened if for a font there is'nt any small-caps version or is'nt installed in operating system? does browsers simulate that ? if your answer is true , what is the rate of smallness size of lowercase letters that is converted to lowercase letters?

thanks in advance.

[JKing]

As far as I know this is handled by the browser. The lowercase letters are converted to uppercase with a smaller font size.

[sedigh mohseni]

thanks JKing ,
1-but you mean that there is'nt any small caps version for fonts?
2-how is determined the rate of smallness lowercase letters that is converted to uppercase letters via font-variant: small-capse ? is it set by browser and it is diffrent between browsers?

[JKing]

1) No there isn't actually a small caps version of the font. Any font can be renedered in small caps because it essentially is only using uppercase letters with a smaller font size.

Here is a small example. Run this in firefox.

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
	<title>Example</title>
</head>
<body>
	<p style="font-size:14px;font-variant:small-caps;font-family:Tahoma;">This is small caps text.<span style="font-size:11px;font-variant:normal;color:blue;">THIS IS UPPERCASE WITH A SMALLER FONT SIZE</span></p>
</body> 
</html>

2) I am not sure how the browser determines the rate of smallness. As far as I know it is set by the browser. But each browser renders it slightly different. In the example I provided, if you were to run it in IE8 wouldn't line up. It's about a 1px difference in font size.