Adding Initial Caps | Adobe InDesign CS3 Bible

Nothing sets off a professional publication from an amateur or word- processed document like the use of initial caps. Decorative characters at the beginning of paragraphs serve both editorial and design purposes, drawing readers into the content with their size and position, while emphasizing a theme with their style.

You'll see initial caps ranging from a single four-line drop cap in the same typeface as the paragraph in a financial publication's letter from the editor to a 140-point word in a script face kicking off a feature article in a bridal magazine. Initial caps often use more decorative typefaces ‚ you can even purchase fonts that consist only of ornate capital letters . A children's book might use a graphic of a letter formed from an animal's body, and a cooking magazine might use the outlines of a letter filled with an image of related foods . You can achieve all these effects with the typographic and layout features in InDesign.

Note ‚

Don't forget that text is for reading. Heavily designed initial caps can become unrecognizable as text, leaving the reader with a disjointed word or sentence in the first paragraph of a story. No matter how gorgeous a 192-point S looks flowing behind a paragraph in rose-colored Kuenstler Script, if the readers don't recognize the S , he's left trying to make sense of the word ensitivity. You would have been better off leaving Sensitivity to start the paragraph and drawing a nice curly shape behind the text.

Creating automatic drop caps

A drop cap is an enlarged capital letter at the beginning of a paragraph that drops down several lines into the text. In daily newspapers and weekly magazines, which are likely to have limited production time, the most common effect you'll see is a simple drop cap in the paragraph's font. Simple drop caps such as these can be created automatically ‚ in two simple steps ‚ in InDesign. Even though drop caps look like character formatting, they're actually created through a paragraph format. This ensures that drop-cap formatting remains in the paragraph even if you edit or delete the original first characters.

To create a drop cap:

Select the Type tool and click in the paragraph to select it.
Make sure either the Control palette or Paragraph pane is open .
Specify how many lines down the characters should drop into the paragraph by typing a number between 2 and 25 in the Drop Cap Number of Lines field.

Generally, you'll drop the characters three to five lines.
Specify how many characters in the first line should be enlarged as drop caps by typing a number between 1 and 150 in the Drop Cap One or More Characters field.

Generally, it looks best to drop the first character or the first word in the story. If the columns are wide enough, you can drop the first phrase.
Press Return or Enter to see the drop caps.

Once you've created a drop cap with the InDesign feature, you can highlight the enlarged characters and change the font, color, or any other character formats. See Figure 19-5 for an example of a four-line drop in a different font and color .

Figure 19-5: This drop cap has an entry of 4 in the Drop Cap Number of Lines field and 1 in the Drop Cap One or More Characters field. It also has the font changed to Univers Light Ultra Condensed and the color to brick red.

For different drop caps effects, try the following:

Tab after the drop caps, then create a hanging indent so the text is aligned to the right of the characters.
Kern between the drop caps and the paragraph text to tighten or expand the space.
Baseline-shift the drop caps to move them up or down.
Change the font size of the drop caps to enlarge them and raise them above the paragraph.
Scale the drop caps to make them more dramatic.

Remember to save the drop caps' existence as a paragraph style sheet, and any modifications to the drop caps as a character style sheet.

Note ‚

If you decide to drop the entire first word or phrase in a story, you'll have to count the number of characters and change the value in the Drop Cap One or More Characters field for each paragraph, since each paragraph's initial word or phrase will have a different number of characters. This means you can't apply the formatting automatically with a paragraph style sheet ‚ you'll have to give each introductory paragraph individual attention.

Tip ‚

If the first character in a paragraph is a quotation mark (" or '), it can look odd as a one-character drop cap. If you don't like this look, you have a couple options: You can either delete the opening quotation mark, an acceptable but potentially confusing practice, or you can use the first two characters in the paragraph as drop caps instead. Some publications simply prefer not to start paragraphs with quotes, preventing the problem from the editorial side.

Creating raised initial caps

Raised caps are another form of initial caps, enlarging and raising the first few characters of the paragraph above the first line in the paragraph. Creating raised caps is simple ‚ highlight the characters you want to raise with the Type tool and enlarge them using the Font Size field on the Character pane (Window ‚ Type & Tables ‚ Character, or z +T or Ctrl+T) or Control palette.

If you raise a word or phrase, you might need to track the raised words to tighten them. You also might need to kern between the raised text and the remainder of the line. Other options for raised caps include changing the font, color, and scale of the characters. See Figure 19-6 for an example of raised caps used in a subhead. If you plan to repeat the raised-cap formatting, save it as a character style sheet.

Figure 19-6: The number 2 in this caption is an example of a raised cap: It has a larger size than the text that follows to call attention to it, in this case as a step.

Converting text to outlines for initial caps

You can convert drop caps, raised initial caps, or any character in any font to a frame. You can then resize, scale, shear, fill, and stroke the character-shaped frame. To do this, highlight the characters with the Type tool, then choose Type ‚ Create Outlines, or press Shift+ z +O or Ctrl+Shift+O. Frames are based on the size and outlines of the font in use and are automatically anchored in the paragraph so they flow with the text.

Note ‚

When you convert text to outlines, the characters no longer exist as text. If you converted part of a word, the remaining portions of the word may be flagged during a spelling check. If you need to edit the text, you will need to delete the outlines, retype the word, and convert the characters again.

Using graphics as initial caps

Rather than using text for initial caps, you can use graphics. You can purchase clip-art collections that consist of nothing but ornate capital letters to use as initial caps. To use a graphic as an initial cap, first delete the characters you will replace with graphics. Then, use the Place command (File ‚ Place, or z +D or Ctrl+D) to import the graphic.

Size the graphic as appropriate, then place it behind the paragraph, next to the paragraph, or anchored in the text of the paragraph. To anchor a graphic in text, select it with the Selection tool and choose Edit ‚ Cut, or press z +X or Ctrl+X. Select the Type tool and click at the beginning of the paragraph, then choose Edit ‚ Paste, or press z +V or Ctrl+V. The graphic is now anchored to the text, so if text is reflowed, the graphical drop cap will flow with it.

In addition to importing graphics for use as initial caps, you can create your own graphics in InDesign. For example, you can place the initial cap character in its own text frame and create reverse type from it as discussed later in this chapter. Or you can shade the character and place it slightly behind the paragraph.