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* Sidebars and versals Oh my!
@ 2004-12-24 16:15 John Culleton
  2004-12-26 20:33 ` h h extern
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 23+ messages in thread
From: John Culleton @ 2004-12-24 16:15 UTC (permalink / raw)


Been working my way through the examples in the Columns Manual, the Details 
Manual etc.  and had some thoughts on additional features.

Versals come in many different flavors, of which the conventional dropped cap 
is just one. Even that facility could use a tweak. Conventionally, to provide 
a transition from the dropped cap to the normal text, the rest of the first 
word, or the next two or three words, or sometimes the entire first line is 
put in a small caps typeface. I cobbled up my own macro for this for a 
particular book I typeset:

\def\drop#1#2{%
\noindent
{\head #1}
\vskip -20pt
\noindent
\hangindent=1.7em
\hangafter=-2
{\sc #2}
}

But this is not the only type of versal. Sometimes a large capital letter 
(perhaps in italics) is centered on the top of the textblock thus:

\def\drop#1#2{\noindent\hglue .4\hsize{\tfd#1}{\sc#2}}

Now there are other variations seen in fine books, such as a dropped initial 
cap partly or completely protruding into the left margin, often colored gray.
The first macro above could be modified for a specific case.  A general macro 
is more challenging. 

A matter of continuing interest is the sidebar, which can be placed in the 
outer margin, or flush left or right in a paragraph, or partly protruding 
into the outer margin. Usually these sidebars will have a gray background and 
often have a border. It appears that creating the sidebar separately as a pdf 
graphic and then importing and placing it would be the easiest way home. 
Context already has mechanisms for flowing or wrapping text around a graphic. 
How well the wraparound feature works when more than one short paragraph is 
involved I have not tested yet.  

In any case I will continue to explore these layout features, and if anything 
interesting shows up I will share. 

-- 
John Culleton

Short list of publishing/marketing books:
http://wexfordpress.com/tex/shortlist.pdf

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 23+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2005-01-03 13:54 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 23+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2004-12-24 16:15 Sidebars and versals Oh my! John Culleton
2004-12-26 20:33 ` h h extern
2004-12-27 11:33   ` Adam Lindsay
2004-12-27 15:10     ` John Culleton
2004-12-27 17:08       ` Adam Lindsay
2004-12-27 17:42     ` John Culleton
2004-12-27 19:15       ` if I only had a frame (was: Re: Sidebars and versals Oh my!) Adam Lindsay
2004-12-27 19:24         ` if I only had a frame Hans Hagen
2004-12-27 19:40           ` Adam Lindsay
2004-12-27 19:46             ` Hans Hagen
2004-12-27 19:25         ` Hans Hagen
2004-12-27 19:29       ` Sidebars and versals Oh my! Hans Hagen
2004-12-27 20:29         ` John Culleton
2004-12-27 20:56           ` Adam Lindsay
2004-12-27 21:19             ` Hans Hagen
2004-12-27 21:31               ` Adam Lindsay
2004-12-29 22:05   ` Tobias Hilbricht
2004-12-30  9:32     ` Hans Hagen
2005-01-03  9:22       ` Tobias Hilbricht
2005-01-03 10:06         ` Hans Hagen
2005-01-03 10:39           ` Tobias Hilbricht
2005-01-03 12:32             ` Hans Hagen
2005-01-03 13:54               ` Tobias Hilbricht

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