[FM Discuss] Using drop-caps in FLOSS Manuals

[James Simmons]

If you checked out the styled pages that the Rural Design Collective
put together for my book you probably admired the drop caps that begin
the first paragraph in each chapter.  I though these were done with
image files but it turns out that you can do this with styles, like
this:

p.intro:first-letter {
   display:block;
   float:left;
   border:3px solid #A64942;
   padding:5px;
   margin:4px 9px 4px 5px;
   font-size:73px;
   background-color: #FAD492;
   font-style: normal;
   color: #1C4501;
}

You need to make the first <p> tag on the page have a class like this:

<p class="intro">

I was able to get the drop caps into my PDF using a custom style
sheet.  I wanted them to be in my web page as well, so I used a
<style> tag to add the style at the top of the page.  The results can
be seen here:

http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/view/ReadingandSugar/Introduction

If you run this through OBJAVI using the default style sheet the
<style> in the page is ignored when creating a PDF.  You need to use a
custom style sheet with the drop cap style included.

While this effect may not be suitable for every FM the book I'm doing
is about e-books so it's kind of appropriate.  Any thoughts?

James Simmons