Drop Caps with X4

[jclements]

Since X4 does not have a Drop Cap attribute (... hint, hint, Charles), I've been trying to find a work-around which is flexible for text formatting or subsequent reformatting.

This is the best method I could come up with that doesn't screw-up the line space of the text directly to the right on the drop cap.

CHALLENGE: I would like to make this a challenge for everyone to see if they can come up with a better (less steps, easier to edit) method.

[Charles Moir]

The rectangle is not really necessary - just set the drop character to repel and it will work perfectly well in most cases surely? (such as with this N).

[steve.ledger]

Yep - I can confirm this Charles, no rectangle necessary

[jclements]

I believe I found it depends upon the size of the Drop Capital in relation to the line spacing. I think the decender attributes of the repeling character's font is part of the repel boundary.

I may be wrong, but my preliminary experimentation found I had some problems with, in the above example, keeping the 4th line of the text from being repeled. The bottom of the rectangle can be scaled upward to control this.

I'll try testing some more when I get some free time.

[gwpriester]

A drop cap needs more space on the right. I agree with John's method. If you add space to push the text back on the right, as it should be, the text under the cap is often repelled as well. The rectangle lets you maintain the proper spacing all around.

[jclements]

Gary, could you see if the Drop Cap works when used in an HTML Web page?