Paragraph initial - "standing" or other formattet

[jweitzel]

Hello out there!

I do want to re-typeset a small brochure about a katholic saint for our church parish. The first run in 2001 had been typeset with Quark ... and in those days I used to have "standing" initials at the start of certain pragraphs. Like in that screenshot:

 

I've tried several times to set up those initials (x lines high, but going *above* the baseline, bold, color...) in AFPub, but I don't succeed. You can chose a chracter style in AFPub with initials - but that isn't used as it is formatted. Only the "bold" style is used.

If I remeber right with Quark, there was supported *any* character formatting for initials.
May be AFPub does not support the connection of setting up an "initial" in the initial-panel *and* there a link to a character style?

Any help is appreciated!

best wishes Johannes

(I'm happy with my Affinity suite)

[Old Bruce]

For this I would set up a Character Style (call it Special Capital or some such) and just change the scaling Horizontal and Vertical to 120% or 200% or whatever you think is best looking. Use it as the Character Style in a Paragraph Style (named Standing Initial or some such) where the only change from your regular text is the use of a Drop Cap that is set to 1 line. You'll also need to have Space Before set to a few points and have that set to be used Always.

[Old Bruce]

Forgot the Screenshot

and a version 2 Publisher file.

Standing Initial.afpub

[jweitzel]

 

You are a real genie, Bruce! Thank You very much! This worked very fine for me. Great, problem solved.

Affinity may keep this at the back of it's mind, that there may be another solutiuon to combine character styles and initials. But your solution works smooth and transparent. You are just an expert...  🙂

Thanks again!
Johannes

(I'm happy with my Affinity suite)

 

 

[jweitzel]

... May I set another question on top of that aspect? As you can see on the screenshot below, there is the chance to make things even better: The standing initial has not only a colour (solved...) and belongs to a decorative font of the same family. The letter is even more "pulled out" to the left "leaving" the normal text container.
In old times I used arrange that by typing a space before that letter and under-cut that space with -800 em, so that the visible letter got torn out of the frame to the left. That's very nice and very good "old style typography", I think.
Here are you:

 

Do you think, that can be solved just with a character style and "initial" setup in AFPub?

 

Thanks a lot for ideas!

Johannes

[jweitzel]

I dare to remember on that last post above of that thread: question for formatting initials optical "outside" the text frame ...
Sorry.
Johannes
(I'm happy with my Affinity Suite)

[Old Bruce]

On 2/14/2023 at 11:14 PM, jweitzel said:

Do you think, that can be solved just with a character style and "initial" setup in AFPub?

I would do this with a separate Paragraph style, Super fancy Initial Letter Paragraph Style. The Paragraph would need a left offset (say 6 points) and then a First line negative offset (-6 points). This would also require wider text frames (6 points) and all styles to have the left offset (the 6 points).

Or you could use Art Text Text Frame for the K and pin it in but that is done on a case by case basis. Fine for one or a few paragraphs, hell for a dozen or more.

[jweitzel]

Thank you Bruce for your helpful reply! But let's be honest: Working like this would be like a joke in Germany about people who live by the sea ("Ostfriesen"): How many people does it take to change a lightbulb? It's five! One holds the lightbulb and 4 rotate the table she is standing on. Har, har.
If I remember correctly, Quark was one step ahead: flowing text can – in addition to > hanging punctuation < – also be drawn outside the text frame.

Thank you very much!
Johannes

(I'm happy with the Affinity Suite)