Drop Letters

harpwriter · Post by **harpwriter** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 7:25 am

I saw this in a book on another word processor, and wondered if Oo has it. They called it 'drop letters,' in which the initial letter of a new chapter is quite a bit larger than the others, and the text sort of wraps around it for a couple of lines. Does Oo have this, and if so, what is it called and how do I access it?

Post by **RoryOF** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 8:27 am

Format / Paragraph / Drop Caps

Drop Caps is the more usual name. Don't overdo them. Usually the first paragraph of a Chapter may have a Drop Cap set flush left (i.e., not indented), followed by the remainder of the word in Small Caps or Caps (aesthetic judgement).

harpwriter · Post by **harpwriter** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 4:24 pm

Thank you. Oo has them? (Sorry, I haven't had a chance to open it up yet this morning and check.)

Post by **TheGurkha** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 4:47 pm

Yes it has them.

Use the Format menu, Paragraph option and then use the Drop Caps tab in the dialog that appears.

Post by **JohnV** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 9:56 pm

And don't be confused when you first start typing with one - you must have two lines of text before the effect takes place.

mrdwab · Post by **mrdwab** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 4:03 pm

I created a little "tutorial" about this just yesterday: http://news.mrdwab.com/2009-09-21/drop- ... rg-writer/

The options I use are a little bit more advanced than simply creating it on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis and is more suited for people who are working on longer documents and don't want to manually make too many changes.

Post by **RoryOF** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 11:47 pm

mrdwab wrote:I created a little "tutorial" about this just yesterday: http://news.mrdwab.com/2009-09-21/drop- ... rg-writer/

Nice tutorial. In the interest of completeness, you might mention that to ease the transition between the drop cap and the plain text it is often the custom to continue the remainder of the first word, and perhaps the second word if the first word is short, or more rarely the initial phrase, in Small Caps or (font dependant) Caps, extending your example to show the effect.

mrdwab · Post by **mrdwab** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 3:16 pm

RoryOF wrote:In the interest of completeness, you might mention that to ease the transition between the drop cap and the plain text it is often the custom to continue the remainder of the first word, and perhaps the second word if the first word is short, or more rarely the initial phrase, in Small Caps or (font dependant) Caps

Good idea. Unfortunately, I cannot think of a way to make that process "automatic" (and reducing the number of manual steps involved in creating and modifying long documents is something I'm particularly interested in). Also, I don't think small caps would look good in that setting--particularly because of line heights--although all caps would be fine.

For those of you who are interested in implementing the suggestion made by RoryOF (since it does make it easier to read in some instances) the process is quite easy: Simply select the text that you want to have in capital letters, right click on it, and under "Case/Characters" select "Uppercase" (or go to Format > Change Case > Uppercase).

I'll try to update my post with an image of what you can expect with the first word and the first few words set in capital letters.

Post by **RoryOF** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 3:21 pm

Thank you for making the addition. I think the choice between small caps and caps is aesthetic, depending very much on the selection of the fonts for the Drop Cap and the body text. What is important is that the possibilities should be mentioned - users can then try this out for themselves and hopefully make a good choice!.

sh1 · Post by **sh1** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 1:32 am

When choosing drop caps "whole word", OO should delete/hide the space after the first word but it does not. This causes the first line to be more indented then the following lines and leaves a very unprofessional look. Any ideas.
Thanks

Post by **acknak** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 2:20 am

It's a known problem. See Issue 39994: word-wide drop cap is not quite right
You can register there and add your vote (up to two) or comment.

There is a workaround mentioned in the issue comments: use a zero-width space following the first (drop-cap) word.

nikkitytom · Post by **nikkitytom** » Tue Dec 18, 2012 12:50 pm

There is an easy and logical fix for the drop cap appearing indented. First go to Format ... choose Paragraph .... go to Indents and Spacing and UNCHECK automatic ( for first line). That will bring the first line of the text flush with the left hand margin of your paper. Now just click on Drop Caps .... and choose your size It will align nicely with the text in a clean block. Of course you'll have go do this manually for each paragraph you want to have the drop cap justified And you have to highlight the paragraph so you can disable the "automatic". But it works like a charm

Post by **RoryOF** » Tue Dec 18, 2012 12:58 pm

I don't think you have to highlight the paragraph to disable "automatic". As far as I remember it is sufficient for the cursor to be in that paragraph for the disable to take.

Post by **acknak** » Tue Dec 18, 2012 4:32 pm

nikkitytom wrote:There is an easy and logical fix for the drop cap appearing indented. ...

Sorry, it sounds interesting but I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.

What you're describing is different than what we were talking about up above, and when I try the "automatic" setting as you described, it seems to make things worse. I'm really not at all familiar with that setting; I don't think I've ever even noticed it's there!

Maybe you could give an example?

Should we start a new thread for this?

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