RE: lettrine.sty, but not LaTeX

["Mats Broberg" <mats.broberg@chello.se>]

Dear listmembers,

I am not quite yet a ConTeXt user (struggling with the installation),
but having a background as typographer, graphic designer, and printer, I
feel that the lettrine.sty package could serve very well as a model for
something similar in ConTeXt. 

At any rate, in order to produce high quality intitials, a ConTeXt
equivalent should not have any less parameters than lettrine.sty.


To re-cap the parameters in lettrine.sty:

==============================================================

- lines=<integer> sets how many lines the dropped capital will occupy
(default=2);

- lhang=<decimal> (0 < lhang =< 1) sets how much of the dropped
capital’s width should hang into the margin (default=0);

- loversize=<decimal> (-1 < loversize =< 1) enlarges the dropped
capital’s height: with loversize=0.1 its height is enlarged by 10% so
that it raises above the top paragraph’s line (default=0);

- lraise=<decimal> does not affect the dropped capital’s height, but
moves it up (if positive), down (if negative); useful with capitals like
J or Q which have a positive depth, (default=0);

- findent=<dimen> (positive or negative) controls the horizontal gap
between the dropped capital and the indented block of text
(default=0pt);

- nindent=<dimen> shifts all indented lines, starting from the second
one, horizontally by <dimen> (this shift is relative to the first line,
default=0.5em);

- slope=<dimen> can be used with dropped capitals like A or V to add
<dimen> (positive or negative) to the indentation of each line starting
from the third one (no e
ect if lines=2, default=0pt);

- ante=<text> can be used to typeset <text> before the dropped capital
(typical use is for French guillemets starting the paragraph);

- image=<true> (new to version 1.6) will force \lettrine to replace the
letter normally used as dropped capital by an image in eps format
(latex) or in pdf, jpg, etc. format (pdflatex); this needs the graphicx
package to be loaded in the preamble of course.
\lettrine[image=true]{A}{n exemple} or just \lettrine[image]{A}{n
exemple} will load A.eps or A.pdf instead of letter A. This was
suggested by Bill Jetzer. Redefining \LettrineFont as \LettrineFontEPS
still works for compatibility but is deprecated.

==============================================================

Also, sometimes one wants to indent all indented lines to the same
position (instead of intenting the first line less) and this should
ideally be possible too. 

Plus setting a specific color for the initial, but that is handled by
ConTeXt's standard features (I guess).

Best regards,
Mats Broberg

> Ah ok, I see. No you cannot do that with DroppedCaps, as is.
> 
> Will post something later ...
> 
> Taco
> 
> Peter Münster wrote:
> > On Fri, 25 Feb 2005, Taco Hoekwater wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >>Probably, but .. I do not know what it is that lettrine does that 
> >>\DroppedCaps does not do.
> > 
> > 
> > Hello Taco,
> > could you please give an example how to do the same with 
> \DroppedCaps, 
> > what is shown on page 30 of 
> > http://pmrb.free.fr/work/cours/latex-intro.pdf ? Peter