In typography, “small caps” refer to uppercase (capital) characters used in-lieu of lowercase (small) characters, where these uppercase characters are set at the same height as the lowercase characters.

Small caps are typically used for titles, headlines, column headings, etc. They are also good for any text that you would usually use all capitals. This is because the use of small caps makes the run of capital letters seem less jarring, and would also often require less space than all caps.

While many word processors and text formatting systems include an option to format text in small caps (which leaves uppercase letters as they are but converts lowercase letters to small caps), this is a feature that is lacking in most graphics editing software.

Some fonts have inherent small caps, ie they use smaller capital letters in place of the lowercase characters. These fonts are useful when you wish to use small caps to bring distinction to your designs.

Here are some fonts with inherent small caps:

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Here is how you can draw an outline on text glyphs during run-time via ActionScript. This method works with embedded as well as non-embedded fonts.

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Drawing outlines on text glyphs can help to give the text emphasis, or simply make it more legible or visible. This type of text rendering is commonly seen in video subtitles.

When using the Aspire UI AS3 library, if you need to draw outlines on text glyphs in uiText instances, you can do so by defining the “outline” property when defining your text style(s). This feature works with both embedded as well as non-embedded fonts.

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If you often embed fonts for use in Flash/Flex and needs to specify “unicodeRange” in the [Embed] meta tag, the following site gives you the unicode tables for the various character glyphs:

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Here is how to apply embossed (and engraved) text effect during run-time easily using ActionScript. This works only when the TextField instance is using embedded font and its antiAliasType property is set to AntiAliasType.ADVANCED.

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Yesterday, the Aspire UI library was updated to version 1.2.0. Among other changes, we have also implemented support for faux bold weights for embedded fonts.

Faux bold is “fake” bold. It is an efficient way to display text in the same typeface but with different weights (bolder, thinner, etc.). It can be used as an alternative to the real bold font, or used in combination with the real thing.

Sometimes, the bold version of a font simply doesn’t exist so this is also where faux boldness comes in. Or, you can use this feature to make the typeface thinner (rather than bolder).

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In a previous demo Loading embedded fonts on-demand using the uiFonts manager, the uiFonts manager was shown to load external embedded font SWFs “on-demand”.

The uiFonts manager can work with embedded font SWFs compiled either from the Flash IDE or the Flex compiler.

When compiling using the Flash IDE, we use Font Symbols in the Library (see uiFonts usage notes).

When compiling using the Flex compiler, we use a single AS3 class file. The following shows how the AS3 Class must be written in order for the resulting SWF to work with the uiFonts manager.

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Why Embed Fonts?
Embedding a font inside a SWF file means that the font does not need to be present on the devices the SWF file eventually plays back on. In order to ensure that text are rendered in the way the Flash application developer originally intended, it is often necessary to embed the fonts used in the application. This is especially so for fonts that are not commonly installed in the target devices. The use of embedded fonts is also mandatory for some features of the Flash Player to work, such as text rotation and transparency (pre-Flash Player version 10).

The Problem
Unfortunately, embedding fonts into the application SWF can seriously bloat the file size. It will also increase compile time significantly, wasting much development time.

The Solution
Using the uiFonts manager from Aspire UI Standard Edition, it is possible to use embedded fonts without compiling them into the main application SWF. Instead, each individual font exists in its own external SWF file which is loaded into the application on-demand during run-time. These font SWF files can be created once for each font and re-used across different applications.

This is especially helpful for applications where the use of embedded fonts is essential, such as an apparel print design or greeting card design application that offers multiple font choices.

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