Drop Caps

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Drop caps are the first letters of a text which are bigger than the rest. In old books they are often colourful and artistic paintings. Scribus has a built-in function to achieve this effect: In the Edit > Paragraph Styles dialog, the option “Drop Caps” creates a large letter at the bginning of a text. For a detailed description, see the section Working With Styles.ENDNOTE

The methods described below are a little more flexible and allow for some more effects.

  • Create a text frame and load your text. Adjust the font, size etc. as you please.
  • Delete the first letter of your text.
  • Create a new text frame (we call this frame “initial”) and type the letter you have deleted in the other frame.
  • Set the size of the text frame “initial” to a high value. Remember, it contains only one letter!
  • Change the text frame “initial” via Item > Convert To to Outlines. If necessary, the drop caps's size can be changed like a drawing.
  • In the Shape tab of the Properties Palette enable “Text Flows around Frame” and then “Use Bounding Box” on the “initial” frame.
  • Now, just move the “initial” frame, so that its position is in the upper left corner of the original text frame. The text in the frame will flow around it:

Image:DropCaps1.png


  • The look of the drop cap can be changed in many ways. Here are some examples:

Image:DropCaps2.png

  • A second drop cap behind the first one. After some color changes we have a shadow:

Image:DropCaps3.png

  • Filled with a gradient:ENDNOTE

Image:DropCaps4.png

  • Last, but not least: the outlines can be converted to an image frame.ENDNOTE
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