How to use small Caps?

Question

I'm trying to use a font that has small caps. I found a UIFont extension on some guy's website that claimed it would do small caps but alas, no luck. Any ideas?

extension UIFont {

  func smallCapsFontVariant(smallCapsForUppercase: Bool = true) -> UIFont {
  var features = [
  [UIFontFeatureTypeIdentifierKey: kLowerCaseType,
    UIFontFeatureSelectorIdentifierKey: kLowerCaseSmallCapsSelector]
]

if smallCapsForUppercase {
  features.append([UIFontFeatureTypeIdentifierKey: kUpperCaseType,
    UIFontFeatureSelectorIdentifierKey: kUpperCaseSmallCapsSelector])
}

let smallCapsFontDescriptor = fontDescriptor().fontDescriptorByAddingAttributes([
  UIFontDescriptorFeatureSettingsAttribute : features
  ])

return UIFont(descriptor: smallCapsFontDescriptor, size: 0d)
}

@LeoNatan I understand that, but users can tag questions with the language *they want an answer in*. The question doesn't have to be *about* the tagged language. For example, here, I know for a fact the OP doesn't want an answer in Objective-C. — Eric Aya, Apr 15 '16 at 14:46

matt · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-15T17:05:30.317

2

The problem is that very few fonts have a small caps variant. If you're not using one of those few, you won't get small caps. You can't magically create a feature that isn't there...

Here's code that accesses the small caps variant of Didot:

    let desc = UIFontDescriptor(name:"Didot", size:18)
    let d = [
        UIFontFeatureTypeIdentifierKey:kLetterCaseType,
        UIFontFeatureSelectorIdentifierKey:kSmallCapsSelector
    ]
    let desc2 = desc.fontDescriptorByAddingAttributes(
        [UIFontDescriptorFeatureSettingsAttribute:[d]]
    )
    let f = UIFont(descriptor: desc2, size: 0)

Now f is the small caps variant of Didot, and you can use it in your interface.

If the font you're using is not Didot, then substitute it in that code; but be very sure to begin with that your font has a small caps variant, or this won't work.

edited Apr 15 '16 at 17:05

answered Apr 15 '16 at 16:06

matt

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Downvoting this answer seems silly, since it is demonstrably correct. – matt Apr 15 '16 at 17:05
This doesn't seem to work anymore. Possibly an iOS 9 issue? – nathan Jun 22 '16 at 05:30
@ntesler works fine in iOS 9, 10, whatever. Downloadable working project here: https://github.com/mattneub/Programming-iOS-Book-Examples/blob/master/bk2ch10p499fontDescriptor2/ch23p670font1dynamicType/ViewController.swift – matt Jun 22 '16 at 12:32
Ah thankyou! Didn't put the feature dictionary into an array – nathan Jun 23 '16 at 03:02

How to use small Caps?

1 Answers1