Tip #2621 - Drop Cap
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Drop
Cap
What is a drop cap?
Well, it is that ever so small, yet beautiful addition to a document.
You may be amazed at how easy it is to put such a great touch on your
documents.
To put a Drop Cap
on your publication, you should first decide where the drop should happen.
Once the decision
is made, the rest is quick and easy.
You begin by placing
the cursor in the paragraph where you want the Drop Cap to be.
Then, go to the Format
menu, Drop Cap choice.
A Drop Cap window
will open, allowing you to choose which type of drop you would like.
The choice on the
left is no drop, just the regular text.
The middle box will
drop the first letter within the text, wrapping all the
text around the larger letter. (Just like the paragraph I began the tip
with).
The last box will
put the larger letter completely in the left margin.
When you choose either
of the Drop Cap choices, you should notice that the bottom of the window
becomes active, allowing you to decide three things.
First, the font
of the dropped letter; second, how many lines in the
text the letter should drop and third, how far away the
letter should be from the text.
These three options
are truly a matter of choice. The more lines you drop the letter, the
larger it becomes.
I would also like
to note that when you choose a font, it does not change the font of the
whole paragraph. It just the letter to be dropped.
If you decide to change
the font of the letter after it's been created, you can simply highlight
the letter and change the font the same way you would normally change
it.
Now, during my research
for this tip, I was able to find a Drop Cap for MS Word. Unfortunately,
I was not able to find a Drop Cap in either MS Excel or PowerPoint. The
only way I could get this effect into either of these programs was to
type the complete paragraph in MS Word and create the Drop Cap. I finished
in Word by highlighting the entire paragraph and completing a copy.
Then I went to either
Excel or PowerPoint and did a Paste Special, choosing
the Microsoft Word Document Object choice from the list.
This puts the paragraph into the slide or worksheet as an object (like
a picture). It will have grabbers on the side for moving and resizing.
In order to edit the text, you'll need to double click
in the paragraph. (When you complete the editing, click outside the Word
window and you'll go back to the slide or worksheet).
Well, that's it. An
easy and quick way to dress up a document with some artistic flare. Enjoy!
~ April
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