Drop Caps and Lower Case Section names

[solerous]

I am new to Affinity publisher. This is my first post.

The software has so much promise, but I'm getting tripped up on a few things.

1) How do I limit drop caps to the first paragraph of a section of text? Also, how to I keep the Drop Cap from overlapping the text. If I use certain fonts it worked, but on other decorative fonts it overlaps.

2) How do I choose Capitalization > Lowercase for a style? It doesn't seem to exist in the style options, though it is available to be used manually via the menu.

See the attached screenshots for the problems. There is also an additional issue with the chapter start master page that if it starts on the left hand side the margin is messed up (it doesn't adjust to the correct margins).

Thanks.

 

 

[Old Bruce]

3 hours ago, solerous said:

how to I keep the Drop Cap from overlapping the text. If I use certain fonts it worked, but on other decorative fonts it overlaps.

The only answer to this is to not use those 'other' fonts. I know that is a [expletive deleted] answer but I am serious. I cannot count the number of times I have had to choose another lesser font to fix this and other types of problems.

The weird indent is because of a lack of space, you may have to insert some line breaks (Shift + Return on Mac) before the Y in page 7. Personally I wouldn't use drop caps for each paragraph but that is a purely subjective choice on my part.

Oh my goodness, I should read more carefully  before answering

3 hours ago, solerous said:

How do I limit drop caps to the first paragraph of a section of text?

I always set up a Regular Paragraph paragraph text style and a First Paragraph paragraph text style and apply them as Regular to everything then change the first paragraph as I go through.

Your second question needs a bit of clarification for me, are you wanting this for "CHAPTER I" and/or "SECTION NAMER" so it will be Chapter I and Section Namer? Does the font have upper and lower case letters and the words are all upper case? Probably. Then I am afraid you'll have to change them to upper and lower case, there is probably a Find and replace regular expression formula for that.

 

EDIT: If you have your heart set on using the Drop Cap font I can give you a work around but I am pressed for time right now. Let me know and I'll try again tomorrow.

[solerous]

Thanks, Bruce, for the reply. I was kind of afraid you would say that about the drop caps. I think I may just insert a single text box in there and do it by hand, then, typing in the letter manually.

As for the section name, this font has small capital letters as the "lowercase". So in another font, it would be:

chapter i

Section Name

(the O and the R are for the "<" and ">" characters)

I can highlight that placeholder code "<Section Name>" and choose Text > lower case but it does absolutely nothing. It works if I choose all caps, though. It's just weird. And why is the option for "lowercase" not in the styles menu? It feels like these are oversights, but I am new to the software so maybe I'm missing something.

[walt.farrell]

38 minutes ago, solerous said:

I can highlight that placeholder code "<Section Name>" and choose Text > lower case but it does absolutely nothing. It works if I choose all caps, though. It's just weird. And why is the option for "lowercase" not in the styles menu? It feels like these are oversights, but I am new to the software so maybe I'm missing something.

In the Text > Capitalization menu, the top 3 entries (marked below) stylize the text you apply them to, and if you use them you will see a check mark showing which one is currently applied to the text. The actual text remains unchanged, it just appears different based on the stylization option.

The remaining entries, below the line, are instantaneous text transformations that actually modify the text. As those are physical transformations, not stylizations of the text, they are not available in the Text Style settings.

[solerous]

Okay, that explains why it's not in the text style options. So, is there a way to make Section Name lowercase?

[walt.farrell]

1 minute ago, solerous said:

So, is there a way to make Section Name lowercase?

Change the font you're using?

[solerous]

18 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Change the font you're using?

It looks like I may just have to do them by hand, then. Thanks for your suggestions and help.

Edited May 4, 2020 by solerous

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.

[MikeW]

5 hours ago, solerous said:

...

1) ...Also, how to I keep the Drop Cap from overlapping the text. If I use certain fonts it worked, but on other decorative fonts it overlaps.

...

You might try this setting for the drop caps. Usually it keeps decorative caps from collision with the lines underneath.

When it doesn't work, it is most often a font metrics issue.

[thomaso]

6 hours ago, solerous said:

how to I keep the Drop Cap from overlapping the text. If I use certain fonts it worked, but on other decorative fonts it overlaps.

These overlaps are 'by design' and the decorating character of this font.
This example shows more clearly that the overlap is intentional. It also shows that a different color visually helps to differentiate the glyphs:

For the horizontal overlapping, as in your text "The Tower (...)" and "You see (...)" you could use the according option in the Drop caps panel.
In general for some taste it may look more attractive if all initial characters have more space, even if not overlapping.

[thomaso]

An option to avoid the vertical overlapping with your drop-caps font would be to...

1.  automatically increase the line space after each paragraph and
2.  to shift the drop-cap baseline a little up into the new free space:

 

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

I always set up a Regular Paragraph paragraph text style and a First Paragraph paragraph text style and apply them as Regular to everything then change the first paragraph as I go through.

Depending on your workflow it might help to use the "Next Style" option in the Text Style Editor.
This way you can achieve an automatic style switch after a paragraph, for instance from Drop Caps to regular Body text.

 

[solerous]

Thanks Mike and Tomaso. Each letter in this font has a different "overlap" so in the end I think I will just have to do them by hand. It will be a bit hard having to detatch each page to adjust for each letter, but I don't see any way around it.

[solerous]

Oh, no, I've hit another snag. In creating a text box for the Drop Cap, I've somehow mucked up my master file. See the attached images for the problem. I need to have a Facing template to account for whether the chapter starts on the left or right hand page (to ensure correct margins). But even though I assign the "Main Text" master (which has no drop caps and a standard text block) the ghost of the drop cap text box remains. Worse, I can't even remove it via detatching from the master. It's like the text is underneath the master and both templates are being applied.

[thomaso]

10 minutes ago, solerous said:

It will be a bit hard having to detatch each page to adjust for each letter

For text editing and styling you don't need to detach.

I'd start with a first adjustment setting applied to a style and do only the fine-tuning individually. I assume you will not need to edit every drop cap manually this way but certain characters only.

Also note you can assign a different style with the Find & Replace panel.

[solerous]

1 minute ago, thomaso said:

For text editing and styling you don't need to detach.

Because of the way the text overlaps, I actually need to change the size of the text box on each page. That's why I need to detatch.

[thomaso]

1 minute ago, solerous said:

Because of the way the text overlaps, I actually need to change the size of the text box on each page.

Yes, an additional text box makes it a little cumbersome. So, why preferring that workflow if it feels hard while there are alternatives?

[MikeW]

May I ask what the font for the DCs is?

[solerous]

22 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Yes, an additional text box makes it a little cumbersome. So, why preferring that workflow if it feels hard while there are alternatives?

I can't get the drop cap font to move up vertically the way you showed. Using a text box was the only way I could get it to work right. If I adjust the baseline, it affects the regular text as well.

[solerous]

6 minutes ago, MikeW said:

May I ask what the font for the DCs is?

Whistler from Letter Head Fonts

[solerous]

Since the text boxes were creating that odd ghosting which replicated onto the other master template, I tried going back to a paragraph style. It seemed promising at first, but it doesn't work with all the letters. Even though it's set to show drop caps for the first 3 lines, sometimes it only does it for two and then overlaps the third line.

[thomaso]

15 hours ago, solerous said:

Even though it's set to show drop caps for the first 3 lines, sometimes it only does it for two

I can reconstruct a varying number of drop cap lines by altering the baseline grid. To detect if it influences your issue, too, you could  a.) deactivate your grid and  b.) alter the grid.

Perhaps it is a bug, as shown in this video. While I can't make it occur for other similar setting, e.g. the same number of drop caps (all frames) or same font size + same leading (left frame). This unwanted change of the number of drop cap lines occurs for a grid with 4, 8 and 16, while 16 also is the font size and the leading, but as for the left frame, too, which does not show the issue.

[solerous]

Thanks, Thomaso, for all the help. It's very much appreciated. I think at this point I've resigned myself to using text boxes individually inserted onto each page. This is regrettable since it creates extra work and may not respond to changes in pagination (when a chapter moves from the left page to the right, etc.). Hopefully they will make this more intuitive and robust in a future update.