fustratred with drop caps

[Wickedly clever fantasy]

This should be so much easier than what it is but I cannot figure this dang thing out. How in the world do I make a paragraph style with a drop cap but I want the drop cap to be of a different font style. With InDesign, I would just make a paragraph style named drop cap then create a character style called drop cap one and then tell the paragraph style to use drop cap one for the font style for the drop cap. It was a very simple process. With this program I created a paragraph style and then a character style but even when I try and tell it to use the drop cap style it changes the whole paragraph to that font, not just the drop cap. I must be doing something wrong as it should be simpler than this.  

Thank you

Jim

[Old Bruce]

5 hours ago, Wickedly clever fantasy said:

I would just make a paragraph style named drop cap then create a character style called drop cap one and then tell the paragraph style to use drop cap one for the font style for the drop cap.

Use the Drop Caps in the Paragraph Styles to apply your Drop Cap One 

Here is an example, just a different font family. drop caps.afpub

 

[Wickedly clever fantasy]

So I have been able to now get drop cap in a different font but the problem now is it is changing the entire first word to the font of the drop cap. PIC included. Not sure what the hell I am doing wrong.

[walt.farrell]

8 hours ago, Wickedly clever fantasy said:

Not sure what the hell I am doing wrong.

You could compare your file with Old Bruce's sample (above). Or attach a sample file showing the problem. We can't say what you're doing wrong from a picture like that.

[Wasp11b]

Been playing around with this. A solution, I think.

Go to the paragraph side panel.

Go down to the section labelled Drop Caps

Tick on enabled and then at the bottom of the Drop Caps section you will notice a style box. Click on that and at the bottom of the list you will see 'new...' Click on that.

A 'Create Character Style' panel opens set for character style. Leave that. Rename Style name to what you want and then select 'font' on the side of that panel - select the font you want. Click OK.

The first letter of the paragraph should be drop cap in the new font without affecting the font of the rest of the paragraph.

For any paragraph go back to Drop Caps under the paragraph panel and just enable drop cap.

You can have more than one drop cap style by going through the 'new..' procedure as set out above.

If you now go to the Text Styles panel, you will note that your new drop cap styles are listed. However, if you cllick on them, it just puts the first word in the drop cap font without delivering a drop cap! This needs to be looked at by the developers - one would expect the text style to apply what style has been defined in the Drop Cap panel ie with the drop cap.

Hope that helps.
 

[MikeW]

12 hours ago, Wickedly clever fantasy said:

So I have been able to now get drop cap in a different font but the problem now is it is changing the entire first word to the font of the drop cap. PIC included. Not sure what the hell I am doing wrong.

Do you have anything set in the Initial words section?

[Wickedly clever fantasy]

Not sure what i did but i got it working by deleting all paragraph styles and character styles and started over again. Still not sure exactly what went wrong but as WASP said there is a flaw in the system somewhere that affinity needs to look at as he was able to duplicate the problem, but not sure if affinity even reads these forums.

Jim

[Michael117]

20 minutes ago, Wickedly clever fantasy said:

Not sure what i did but i got it working by deleting all paragraph styles and character styles and started over again. Still not sure exactly what went wrong but as WASP said there is a flaw in the system somewhere that affinity needs to look at as he was able to duplicate the problem, but not sure if affinity even reads these forums.

Jim

The Affinity team do read these forums and respond as needed.  If this is a repeatable bug, someone may move this over to the Bug forum. You may want to include the version of AF Pub Beta you are using along with the OS Version that you are running on your computer. There is a forum for Windows bugs and one for Mac bugs.  And I would second Walt's recommendation that you include a sample document that shows the problem you were having.

[Alex White]

On 3/28/2019 at 10:38 AM, Wickedly clever fantasy said:

Not sure what i did but i got it working by deleting all paragraph styles and character styles and started over again. Still not sure exactly what went wrong but as WASP said there is a flaw in the system somewhere that affinity needs to look at as he was able to duplicate the problem, but not sure if affinity even reads these forums.

Jim

My experience has been that affinity read the forums and I've had really good experience with bugs - members here and affinity people have helped me get to the point when I can get a clear reproduction of the bug, and that gives them something solid to work on. 

[Jamesx1]

The problem I'm having with drop cap styles, is that once created, it cannot be changed without changing the entire paragraph to that style. Even if I specifically select and edit only the drop cap style, the entire paragraph is changed to that font. Basically, if you don't blindly get the drop cap right first time, you can't change it. Seems there's no way to separate the editing of drop cap and paragraph styles. Obviously it is designed/intended to be independent, but I can only assume there's a bug here....?

[kenmcd]

1 hour ago, Jamesx1 said:

The problem I'm having with drop cap styles, is that once created, it cannot be changed without changing the entire paragraph to that style. Even if I specifically select and edit only the drop cap style, the entire paragraph is changed to that font. Basically, if you don't blindly get the drop cap right first time, you can't change it. Seems there's no way to separate the editing of drop cap and paragraph styles. Obviously it is designed/intended to be independent, but I can only assume there's a bug here....?

No, not a bug, just confusing styles configuration.

The default Drop Caps style you see is actually a paragraph style.
You see it in the styles list so you click on it - and you get the situation you have.
Since it is a paragraph style, changing it affects the entire paragraph.

Change the paragraph style back to Body, or whatever you are using.
Then go to the Paragraph tab, look towards the bottom for Drop Caps and click to open it.
Check Enabled.
At the bottom of that is a Style box to select a character style.
Enter what you want to call your style such as Drop Caps Style.
Then later when you make changes to that character style it only affects the drop-cap.

So the default styles are confusing for Drop Caps.
There is a default paragraph style, but no character style.
How could that be confusing? 🙂

Note: you can do the same thing in your Body paragraph style - look for the Drop Caps setting near the bottom left.

[Jamesx1]

Awesome, thanks @LibreTraining. I use drop caps a lot so I really appreciate you telling me how to use it properly. Cheers.

[Jamesx1]

Quote

Then later when you make changes to that character style it only affects the drop-cap.

Update: I followed your steps and realized that in fact I was doing those steps. If I'm careful enough, I can avoid affecting the entire paragraph, but the ability to edit the drop cap styles after it has been created still eludes me. At the moment, I need to create a brand new character style for every change and then switch to that, because when I edit the drop cap character style, it accepts the edit but absolutely nothing visibly changes....

[fde101]

7 hours ago, Jamesx1 said:

when I edit the drop cap character style, it accepts the edit but absolutely nothing visibly changes....

I can't reproduce this.

Here is how I am set up:

• Created a paragraph style named "Caps Dropper" which has drop caps enabled, accepted the default of 3 lines (changed nothing else)
• Created a character style named "Dropped Cap" with a visibly different font so it would stand out (changed nothing else)
• Edited "Caps Dropper" and on the "Drop Caps" page set Style to "Dropped Cap"
• Created a text frame containing a few paragraphs and applied "Caps Dropper" to them

If I edit the "Dropped Cap" style to yet another different font, even as I select the font in the list, it is reflected instantly in the text frame.

[Old Bruce]

My variant on @fde101's advice is I start with making a Drop Cap Char Character Style and change absolutely nothing. Then I make a Paragraph Style called Drop Cap and select the pre-made Drop Cap Char for the Character Style. One thing I have done frequently is to use the Scaling (horizontal and vertical) in the Character Style to make the drop cap larger, by anywhere up to 500% and set the Lines in the Paragraph Style to 1, now I have a large initial letter rising above the line. I can also change the font, the colour and occasionally the baseline of the drop cap from editing the Drop Cap Char Character Style. 

I do the same with Initial Words, make a Character Style for the initial words and play with fonts colour and weights. I can now use Initial words and have the ability to also use Drop Caps in one (usually new/different) Paragraph Style.

Still wanting to have a First Line option whereby I can set the first line of a multi line paragraph be in a different font and weight from the rest of the paragraph.