dropcaps.sty
a style file for dropping caps ()

-10pt3cmsl10In a previous issue of (vol. 1, No. 4, 1992), Peter Flynn dedicates a subsection of Typographer's Inn to the problem of dropped capitals. This is my answer to some of his questions. Basically, I don't start with the capital, but I let the capital's size depend on the chosen design. I wrote a dropped caps macro for use with L^ATEX, and took these design decisions:

• First, let the writer choose her favourite design, within certain limitations though, and let the macro do the dirty work: adjusting the cap to the optimal size.
• Let the writer decide how many lines she wants to dropindent. Let her also decide in which font the cap should appear, whether to start the cap at the left margin, or somewhat to the left (into the white space) or to the right (into text direction). Let her decide what she puts into dropped caps: a single character, or even one or more whole words, or without caps at all.
• The limitations: Let the cap's baseline be aligned with the baseline of the lowest of the indenting lines. Let the cap's top line be aligned with the top line of the first of the indenting lines. Don't let the writer mess with this!

Usage

-10pt3cmsl10My dropcaps.sty is a L^ATEX style file, that defines a macro command \bigdrop that enables you to drop capitals at the beginning of a paragraph. The layout can be controlled in various ways, with four parameters (not optional). For instance, the current paragraph started with
\bigdrop{-10pt}{3}{cmsl10}{M}y ...
The required parameters are:

1. a length, that denotes the distance from the left margin (to the left or to the right) at which the dropped capital starts, in this case 10pt into the left margin: -10pt.
2. an integer value, that denotes the number of lines to be indented, in this case 3 lines.
3. the font to be used for the dropped capital, in this case cmsl10.
4. the character or text to be dropped, in this case a single M.

The messy details

-10pt3cmsl10When the macro \bigdrop is called (with four parameters), this is what happens. First, a capital "I" is typeset in the current text font and put in a box (box1). The desired font height (\wantedheight) is then computed from (n-1)*\baselineskip+\ht1, where n is the number of lines to indent. Then the procedure differs, depending on the choice for DVIPS or not.

DVIPS users
In this case the text to be capitalized, typeset in the chosen font (at scale 1000), is put in a box (box0), with height \actualheight = \ht0. Now, the scaling factor for this font can be computed from dividing \wantedheight by \actualheight and multiplying this by 1000. Because divisions are integer, the heights are first put in count registers, and then, to prevent from rounding errors and overflow, \wantedheight*10 is divided by \actualheight/100. The outcome of this is the scale at which the chosen font is typeset.

non-DVIPS users
Without DVIPS things are less elegant, for only the standard magsteps are available for scaling fonts. The text to be capitalized in the chosen font, is first typeset at \magstep 0 and put in a box (box0), with height \ht0.

If \wantedheight is bigger then \ht0, the text is typeset at \magstephalf, and put in box0 again. If \wantedheight is still bigger then \ht0, again the \magstep is increased one step, et cetera. This process is repeated until \wantedheight is smaller then \ht0.

both
The result of the computation can be observed on the screen and in the .log file. Each time a capital is dropped, two lines like
*** Needed height: 30.83331pt, Unscaled height: 6.83331pt
*** cmsl10 scaled 4512 ==> height: 30.83195pt (error: 0.00136pt).
appear. This example is from processing this document with n = 3 and font cmsl10.

At the end of the computation box0 contains the text, typeset in the desired font and scaled such that \ht0 equals the height of the indenting lines. Then, \hangindent and \hangafter are set according to box0 and the parameter values: \hangindent:=\wd0+#1, and \hangafter:=-#2. Precautions are taken for the case that \dp0 is not equal to zero. Finally, in a L^ATEX picture environment, the text is placed where we want it.

Requirements

-10pt3cmsl10In order to use this style file, a big version of L^ATEX is needed, because almost always fonts have to be generated, and already from 4 indenting lines, they tend to become very large. I tested this with emTEX's TEX386 (with emx) on a 486DX33 PC, and with emTEX's bTEX186 on a AT286 PC.

Also needed is a version of DVIPS by Tomas Rokicki with MakeTeXPK running, so the generation of fonts will be done automatically. For me the recently uploaded DVIPS 5.518 works great on both machines.

All this is necessary because the implemented procedure in this macro automatically leads to non-standard fonts. So, for optimal pleasure, use a big TEX and Rokicki's DVIPS.

Alternatives

-10pt3cmsl10Only one style file that does something similar is listed in TEX–index v1.06 by David M. Jones, namely drop.sty by David G. Cantor. The latest version is dated 17–02–1988. This style file also defines a macro to drop capitals, but has no possibilities to accept controlling parameters, except for the choice of font. You are not able to choose the desired height by supplying the number of lines to be indented.

The dropped capital has a fixed size, namely \magstep5, and always two lines are indented. This font height is somewhat smaller than the height of two indenting lines, so the vertical placement of the dropped capital's baseline lies not at the same height as the vertical placement of the baseline of the second indenting line (next to it). The advantage of this is that everyone has this font.