I would like to know how I can increase the size of the first alphabet of first paragraph of a chapter using (Xe/La/?)tex. Please look at the image shown below.
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What is such an effect called? How do I achieve it using Latex?
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Are there any special fonts to be used for this purpose that contain ornamental/decorative alphabet faces? Or can it be achieved by some manipulation of existing alphabet glyphs?
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I am not a designer. I know this site is focused on Tex and not typography but I'd appreciate any pointers to popular typeface combinations for this purpose with popular text faces. E.g. If I am using Adobe Garamond Pro as my text face, what would be a suitable type to use for such a first-alphabet-decoration?
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And finally (this question may tantamount to heresy here): Is there a way to do this in Microsoft Word / OpenOffice?
Best Answer
These are called dropcaps or lettrine (from the French). The best package to use is
lettrine
which is available from ctan.Use as:
Here is the output:
They are very difficult to handle typographically, unless the whole page design has been developed with dropcaps incorporated. The modern trend is to use a sans serif font rather than a serified for the dropcap.
Can Microsoft do it? It can, but not recommended to be used for typesetting books.