Typophile

Proper way to typeset mixed case acronyms?

pkazmier

What is the proper way to set things such as “VoiceXML” or “VoIP”? With other acronyms, I use true smallcaps with extra letterspacing. However, I’m not sure what to do with the lowercase letters in the middle of the acronyms. Do I set it all in smallcaps? Do I ditch the small caps and set it using both u&l?

I’m redesigning my resume (a computer networking guy) as I read through Bringhurst’s book (with an interest in type). In the “Skills” area of my resume, I have a bunch of acronyms listed such as TCP/IP, BGP, HTTP, SMTP, SNMP, etc. Included in this list are the above mixed case acronyms.

Any pointers would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Pete

‹ Oversized quotation mark Creating Titling Caps and Small Caps from Standard Roman ›
Nick Curtis

I think the problem may be a little too au courant for the formal authorities to have ruled on the subject, so do the small cap thing for the all-caps acronymns and the U&lc thing for the mixed-case terms. Besides, do you REALLY think that anybody who reads your résumé (besides, perhaps the editors of The Chicago Manual of Style) is going to have any better idea of the RIGHT way to do it?

Héctor Muñoz Huerta

I would use all smallcaps for them, a mix of smallcaps and lowercase may look a bit ackward, maybe not much (depends on the typeface) but you could have problems distinguishing smallcap v, x, z, o, s, k, c or w from their lowercase form.

Héctor

thierry blancpain

using smallcaps only for VoIP and others would be wrong. in my opinion. try to mix smallcaps and lc, if it doesnt fit, use normal caps instead.

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