[Scribus] Drop caps revisited

[Louis Desjardins]

>After doing some experimentation, it seems there is only one practical
>way to do drop caps in Scribus.
>
>I attempted to do this by simply highlighting the first letter,
>enlarging it, then shifting its baseline. Unfortunately, this leads to
>the letter overlapping the letter in the line below it, a visually very
>unpleasing result, even when it doesn't literally overlap the letter.
>
>What does work with some fidgeting is to create a separate text frame
>with the first letter, overlapping the rest of the text, clicking Text
>Flows Around Frame in Properties, but then, importantly, you have to
>also shift the baseline of the letter downward. The reason for this is
>that there is a space below the baseline that the frame has to have to
>display the letter, so if you don't shift the baseline, there is too
>much empty space beneath the dropped cap. Interestingly, one can display
>a letter that has been partially shifted out of its text frame(!).
>
>Anyone else have a better solution?

Hi Greg,

I assume you know about the drop caps in the Paragraph Style dialog. 
So you are looking for better handling of this feature.

Obviously, the first thing that comes to mind is having a function 
that will allow every bits of control *and* keeping the text together 
(no extra text frame).

The workaround you describe with the extra text frame for the drop 
cap can be refined a bit with a second extra empty text frame. So 3 
text frames.

1. The "general" one, holding your main text
2. The "empty" one for text to run around it
3. The "drop cap" one, holding the drop cap itself

The 3rd frame can be the size that you want, enough to hold the drop 
cap at the size you need. It is not set to "workaround" and you can 
move it as needed.

Unless you need to achieve a very precise goal, I think the Paragraph 
Style with the Drop Cap option can solve most of the issues. The 
3-frame technique is very clumsy. It works... But it is clumsy.

Maybe we could enhance the Drop Cap function instead.

Do you have an example in mind?

HTH

Louis


>
>Greg
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