How can I get small caps on \nd

Question

I want the \nd style to be in small caps. When I export from PT to RTF, \nd is underlined. I checked the box for small caps in the \nd style definition in PTX Print, but when I print to create the PDF, there’s no distinction of style whatsoever. What can I do to get small caps?

Answer 1

The key to getting smallcaps to work is that you need to use a font that has true smallcaps (i.e. is an OpenType or TrueType font that has the smcp feature). Charis SIL, etc. do support small caps. Many fonts don’t.

Answer 2

My font is Tahoma for which we purchased a publishing license to use in the printed NT in 2012. The typesetter got the small caps to work easily then. MS Word also handles small caps with this font without a problem. I have a version of Tahoma TTF from 2009 which I think I downloaded for the typesetter, but is it advisable to install that (retrograding) over the 2018 version currently on my PC?

Answer 3

As an experiment, I switched to NotoSans which is available for Scripture App Builder and displays Small Caps nicely in the Android app. But PTX Print still fails to make small caps display.
In fact, I can’t get small caps to display with PTX Print, even if I switch to Charis SIL…

Comments

First of all, I want to say that this is my first time using PTXPrint and I am really impressed! Very user friendly. Thank you development team!

Steve_Gallagher:

I can’t get small caps to display with PTX Print, even if I switch to Charis SIL

I am having the same problem.

Kim_Blewett:

I wonder if you might need to update either your PTX Print version or your Charis SIL font version, or maybe both?

I just checked, and I have the most recent version of both.

I also found that the marker \sc \sc* also comes out without special formatting. Here is my source text and the PTXPrint Export:

\q1 \v 2 Jacob runacunapa achca marcan caycaptinsi, Sión marcatam \sc Taytanchiga\sc* sumaj cuyan.
...
\q1 \v 6 Acta librunman runacunapa jutinta isquirbir, \nd Tayta Diosninchi\nd* ninga:

Here are my settings:

Any ideas on how to get small caps?

Thanks so much for your help!

Alex

Answer 4

I just tested a number of fonts in PTX Print and in LibreOffice Writer. Writer displays small caps in every font I tested. Wikipedia says most word processors ignore “true small caps” glyphs by default, instead they fake them by scaling down normal capital glyphs under the hood. I’m guessing PTXprint does not include this “fake” technique for small caps.

In my PTXPrint Andika New Basic and Gentium Basic do not produce small caps, but Andika and Gentium Plus do. Charis SIL and Charis SIL Compact also both “work” for small caps.

If small caps in Charis does not “work” for you in PTXPrint, I wonder if you might need to update either your PTX Print version or your Charis SIL font version, or maybe both? It’s easy to forget that most SIL software items are regularly updated and improved.

I strongly suspect that Tahoma does not include small caps. Check out Microsoft’s specs for Tahoma, compared with Calibri at docs.microsoft .com/en-us/typography/font-list

Interesting discussion on Wikipedia, if you are interested: Search for “small caps” there.

Finally, if you want a Sans font that looks good you might try Andika. Andika was developed as a literacy font so it defaults to “primer a and g.” But you can change these glyphs in Paratext, PTXPrint, InDesign & LibreOffice to the “normal” non-literacy variants. In the PTXPrint Fonts+Script tab click on the Body Text font. Choose Andika. Then tick Graphite Rendering and click the Select Features button at the bottom of the dialog. For Andika and its variations the feature, “Literacy Alternates” is ON by default. Untick it and click OK in the Select Features dialog. You should now see “litr-0” next to the Select Features button. We use Eng and Glottal variants as well, as you can see in the screenshot.

Answer 5

I was able to get success with small caps after updating to the latest version of PTX print and by redefining the \nd style. My preferred font is Tahoma. But I could only get the small caps with Noto Sans. These fonts are similar, so I find it a reasonable compromise to use Tahoma for the entirety of the publication and NotoSans only for the Name_of_Deity style.

Comments

I am having the same problem. I am using PTXPrint 1.9.2. I updated to Charis SIL 6.001, which is the latest available on the SIL software site, but all caps won’t work in PTXPrin with Charis SIL. Nor does Charis SIL Compact. It works fine with Andika 6.001, Doulos 6.001, and Gentium 6.001. Andika Basic Compact does not work.

I went into the font features for Charis SIL and ticked Small Caps in the long list of features.

It made no difference. I still cannot get small caps to print with Charis SIL.

Restarting PTXPrint did not help.

Suggestions welcome.

Answer 6

I uninstalled all my CharisSIL fonts and re-installed 6.001. Same result: Small caps work in Paratext but not in PTXPrint. Andika 6.001 produces small caps in Paratext and PTXPrint, and so do the other SIL version 6.001 fonts: Doulos and Gentium. So CharisSIL is the odd one.

It is baffling to me that CharisSIL 6.001 produces small caps in Paratext and not in PTXPrint. I thought maybe this is because it is a 6.001 font and therefore doesn’t have graphite. But Andika Basic Compact, a version 5.00 font, also works for small caps in Paratext but not in PTXPrint.

A possibly related issue: I can get the Andika 6.001 non-literacy “a” to work in PTXPrint, but I can’t find a way to make Paratext do it. Paratext help says I need a language code for my Graphite font, but Andika is a non-Graphite font.

Advice welcome.

Comments

Just confirming that we can replicate this behavior and hope to be able to track it down for you. My best guess is that it is a font-specific issue rather than PTXprint’s inabiliy, but I’ve passed it on to the WSTech experts who should be able to see this resolved eventually.

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@John_Nystrom Wow - that was a tough one to crack, but it wasn’t a PTXprint bug. It is/was to do with the name of the Charis font/files changing when version 6.001 came out. Play spot the difference between the old:

image1493×348 35.8 KB

and the new:

image1576×344 40.4 KB

On my system, I could see 2 sets of “CharisSIL” fonts within the Windows\Fonts folder - with slightly different names. Even after uninstalling the CharisSIL font, one set of files was still “sitting there” - possibly from a previous installation. The dates gave it away!

So I manually deleted those extra files, restarted Windows for good measure, and then re-installed CharisSIL 6.001 which gave me the updated files:

Finally, when trying again with PTXprint, I got the PDF to proclaim that:

I am hoping that this will enable you and others to solve the issue of \nd not working\nd* with some fonts, but working with others.

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Thank you for this, Mark. This fixed it for me.

By the way, I decided to try the app you show here: Everything. It found the files I needed to find when Windows Explorer did not. Some fonts were installed under my username and those were the ones causing the problem.

JN