Large first character

[Phil_rose]

I know this must be really straightforward and I guess missing something but I want to make the first character of a character large and I can't work out how to do. The problem may be that I can't find any information on it because I can't remember what the correct word for it is. Is it drop cap? Searching help for that phrase doesn't help!

Can anyone offer me any advice?

Phil

[Alfred]

25 minutes ago, Phil_rose said:

The problem may be that I can't find any information on it because I can't remember what the correct word for it is. Is it drop cap? Searching help for that phrase doesn't help!

You’ve remembered correctly, Phil. I think the reason why you can’t find any information on it is simply that the feature isn’t yet available in the Affinity apps: you have to do it all manually, but shaped text frames may help.

[toltec]

Wot 'e said.

I made a rectangle, unticked Single radius and set the top left corner (TL) to Cutout.

Then turned that into a text frame by clicking on the Frame text tool and dragging it over the rectangle.

I stuffed a big Artistic text letter in the hole.

You could also make the chopped text frame using a cut out rectangle and a boolean operation.

[R C-R]

You probably already know this but if all you want to do is enlarge the first character so it extends above the rest of the text (instead of being a drop cap) you can select that character individually in a text block & set its size independently. In the Character panel you can also adjust the tracking of that character so it is not spaced too close to the rest of the first word. This allows you to adjust the size, position, etc. of the text block without having to worry about adjusting the shape text & the drop cap individually.

The attached squaw of the hippopotamus.afdesign file is an example of what I mean.

[CuriousPuffin]

I want to add that it is (now) possible. If you add an paragraph style and go into edit the paragraph style, you will be able to choose "Enable Drop Caps" from the menu beneath paragraph.