Drop Caps

A drop cap is an enlarged and/or repositioned character at the beginning of a paragraph. Word supports two types of drop caps (Figure 78):

Dropped enlarges the character and wraps the rest of the text in the paragraph around it.
In Margin enlarges the character and moves it into the margin.

Tips

Word creates drop caps using frames, a feature that enables you to precisely position text on a page or in relation to a paragraph. Frames is an advanced feature of Word that is beyond the scope of this book.
To see drop caps, you must be in Print Layout view or Print Preview. A drop cap appears as an enlarged character in its own paragraph in Normal view (Figure 79).

Figure 79. A paragraph with a drop cap when viewed in Normal view.
A drop cap can consist of more than just the first letter of a paragraph (Figure 80).

Figure 80. A drop cap can consist of more than just one character.

1.	Position the insertion point anywhere in the paragraph for which you want to create a drop cap.
2.	Choose Format > Drop Cap (Figure 25).
3.	In the Drop Cap dialog that appears (Figure 81), click the icon for the type of drop cap that you want to create. Figure 81. Use the Drop Cap dialog to enter settings for a drop cap.
4.	Choose a font for the drop cap from the Font drop-down list.
5.	Enter the number of lines for the size of the drop cap character in the Lines to drop box.
6.	Enter a value for the amount of space between the drop cap character and the rest of the text in the paragraph in the Distance from text box.
7.	Click OK.

Tip

To create a drop cap with more than one character (Figure 80), select the characters that you want to appear as drop caps, then follow steps 2 through 7 above. You cannot select more than one word to include in drop caps.

Follow steps 1 and 2 above, select the icon for None in step 3, and click OK.