Drawing Attention with a Drop Cap

One easy and fun way to add visual interest to a text heavy page is to use a Drop Cap. A Drop Cap is when the first letter of a paragraph is increased in size and, more often than not, put in a more ornate font.

To create a Drop Cap, place your insertion point in the paragraph you wish to start with a Drop Cap. Then, choose Insert on the Ribbon, click Drop Cap > Drop Cap Options. The ‘Drop Cap Options’ allows you to either insert the Drop Cap into the paragraph, with ‘Dropped’, or place it separate from the text, with ‘In margin’. If you’re unsure what to use, I would suggest ‘Dropped’ and increase the ‘Distance from text’ setting to .3cm and the ‘Lines to drop’ setting (which affects the Font size of the actual Drop Cap) to 5 and click OK.

To change the font of the Drop Cap, you can either select the font you want directly in the ‘Drop Cap Options’ window or highlight the letter (which appears in a Frame) afterwards and changing it. You could even use Format, Borders and Shading, Shading tab to fill the frame with colour.

Helen Bradley