0:00Hello and welcome to this video tutorial, I
0:02'm going to be taking you through the basics
0:04of Drop Caps and why we use them.
0:07First off, why do we use Drop Caps?
0:10Basically we want to draw the reader's
0:11attention to the beginning of a section or
0:13a paragraph.
0:15Hence they're normally larger or styled
0:17differently to the rest of the text or
0:20whatever font you decide to use in your
0:22paragraph style.
0:24I'm using InDesign CS4 but you can follow
0:27along in InDesign CS3 and CS2 as well.
0:31You might not have a couple of the options
0:34in CS2 but you can still follow along.
0:38To set a paragraph style, simply select in
0:41the paragraph you want that paragraph style
0:44to be in.
0:45It's important to know that this will only
0:48apply to the paragraph that you currently
0:52put the text tool in and if you select
0:54another paragraph it will apply to that
0:56paragraph.
0:57If you select this paragraph, you go up
0:59here to the top panel and you select the
1:01paragraph tools and these two options here
1:04are basically what you use to play around
1:09with Drop Caps.
1:11Now if you increase the setting here, what
1:14that does is it increases the Drop Cap to
1:17the amount of lines that you set up here.
1:20So at the moment you can see the Drop Cap
1:21has taken three lines and that's what we've
1:24set up there.
1:25At the moment we're taking one character
1:27but if you wanted to you could increase
1:30this to more.
1:31I'm going to go back down to one. Now if I
1:45zoom in quickly to this, you can see that
1:45the left hand side isn't quite aligned to
1:46the margin on the left hand side.
1:47Now to do this you're going to have to open
1:50up the slightly more advanced option panel
1:54and to do that you've got a few options.
1:57You can either come here to the very top
1:59right and select the panel bar there and
2:01select Drop Caps and Nested Styles or you
2:04can use the shortcut Alt+Ctrl+R or there's
2:08also a third way if you hold down Ctrl+Alt
2:11and you click on that it opens up this
2:15panel here.
2:17Now at the moment I'm not clicking it but
2:19if I click in it and do the same thing you
2:22've got three lines there and one character
2:25which is what we've set there.
2:28But you've also got these two options, Al
2:30ign the Left Edge which when you click and
2:33you select Preview it moves the character
2:36to the very left hand side.
2:38It looks at the character shape and it
2:41moves it and aligns it to the left hand
2:44side so that everything is neat.
2:47The other option here is Scale for Desc
2:49enders and I'll show you what that does in a
2:52second.
2:53Let's say you're using the letter Q, more
2:58importantly a capital Q.
3:01Now straight away you can see that the
3:04bottom of this Q has gone beyond its
3:07baseline and it's overlapping here.
3:11That's basically the problem we have here
3:14with the descender in that the Drop Cap is
3:18too big as it is and needs to be scaled
3:21down because it has a descender as it were.
3:26So if you again select the Align to Left
3:28Edge tool but this time also click the
3:30Scale for Descenders tool.
3:33What it does is it scales the Q down and
3:45you have your Q.
3:46Now you can neaten this up, it needs a bit
3:48of kerning because if you look at the
3:49bottom here the A is quite close to the
3:51bottom of this Q again.
3:53So you go up to the Type tool and increase
3:58the spacing there and basically play with
4:01that until you're happy with it.
4:03I'm not quite happy with that, I'd take it
4:05a bit more than that.
4:07But basically you play around with that
4:08until you're happy.
4:10Let's say you wanted to move this up, drop
4:13cap from its baseline and you just select
4:16it and you play around with these settings
4:20here
4:21until you are happy.
4:24If you wanted to make it wider or closer
4:27then you can do.
4:29But bear in mind all these settings are
4:31relative.
4:32So it's 12pt, obviously this Q isn't 12pt,
4:35it's referring to the actual size of the
4:38font here which is 12pt.
4:40But anything you do to this Q is relative
4:42to what it would do to the font.
4:45It's just slightly bigger.
4:47Now I've shown you the proper way of making
4:50a drop cap but let's say you wanted to use
4:53a fancy font.
4:54Let's say you wanted to use an F and you
4:58want this F to be made from a fancy font,
5:03let's say English.
5:06This is a font I have on my computer.
5:10Sorry, make that an F. And as you can see
5:17you've got this drop cap here which is
5:17quite big.
5:17You've instantly got the problem with k
5:20erning.
5:21If you keep increasing that until you're
5:24happy then that's what happens.
5:27But as you can see you've got this massive
5:30space here and that to me is a bit of a
5:33waste.
5:34So we do like this drop cap to have a bit
5:36of space, I think that's just too much
5:39space and it looks somewhat awkward.
5:42So what you can do is you can cut that drop
5:46cap out of there, delete the settings you
5:50've got here.
5:51So don't have any drop cap settings in that
5:53paragraph whatsoever.
5:55You paste that back in.
5:57You paste the F that you've just cut out in
5:59.
6:00And don't forget this is still a drop cap
6:02if you look at settings it's 12 points, it
6:04's still a drop cap.
6:06Let's go to the type tool here and create
6:08an outline.
6:09What that does is it converts the shape
6:12into, the font into a vector shape.
6:17And if you look a little closer you can see
6:19with the direct select tool it's gone and
6:23basically traced the shape of that letter.
6:26And now seeing as it's an object you can
6:28apply some text wrapping to it.
6:31And as you can see the text wrap there
6:34grows.
6:35But the benefit of doing a drop cap this
6:38way is that the drop cap now then takes
6:41full advantage of the shape of the
6:44character.
6:46So that space isn't wasted.
6:50Make it bigger, make it more stylistic.
6:58So you want to do something like that.
7:01It's slightly more flexible and what
7:02happens here is the space isn't taken up.
7:06And yep the reader is still attracted to
7:08the beginning of the paragraph but you've
7:10gone and played around with it.
7:12Now you can play around with that until you
7:13're happy.
7:14I wouldn't be quite happy with that and
7:17maybe want to move it up a bit, get it so
7:20that the F and the O are slightly closer.
7:25And maybe try and play with the space
7:27underneath here, I don't quite like that.
7:30So you go into text wrap again, maybe drop
7:34it one, move it up.
7:37But basically keep playing around until you
7:38're happy, until you've got settings that
7:40you like.
7:42Another thing to look into is anchored
7:43objects so if you want to take this further
7:46.
7:46Let's say you were to move this paragraph
7:47down, what would happen is that would
7:49unfortunately stay where it was.
7:52So that would stay where it was and every
7:53time you move the paragraph or you move the
7:55text it wouldn't stay with the F.
8:00Whereas if it was an anchored object then
8:01what would happen is every time you move
8:03that bit of text or if you were to place
8:05the anchor right here just before the O,
8:08then every time that moved it would move
8:10with it so those two would always stay
8:12together almost like a grouped object.
8:15But don't ever do that, that's some nasty,
8:18nasty InDesign trick, grouping an object
8:22and a text box.
8:24Unless you really have to.
8:27Okay that's it, that's the end of this
8:28tutorial.
8:29I hope that's inspired you to go out and
8:30try something of your own or maybe give you
8:33an idea to do a custom drop cap in Illust
8:35rator or something and bring that into In
8:36Design.
8:37If you've got any questions feel free to
8:39email and as always please leave comments
8:41at the end of the post.
8:42Thank you for listening.