Drop caps?

[jackm8]

Amazons site mentions Drop caps as a feature in their Advanced Typesetting blurb. Does anyone know of any book example where they are used? Or what code is needed to implement them manually in the files?

* Drop caps: Drop caps automatically adapt their line height to the customer's screen size and font settings. 
https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G202087570

[jhowell]

Amazon's documentation for publishers is not great but they do have some information on coding drop caps in the Kindle Publishing Guidelines.

[jackm8]

Thanks. It's surprisingly easy. Code works on .epubs that are then converted to .kfx with KFX Output plugin.

All that's needed is "span.dropcaps" into styles.css, then <span class="dropcaps">T</span> around first capital letter in the chapter, replacing the T.

span.dropcaps
{
font-weight:normal;
font-size:320%;
float:left;
margin-top:-0.3225em;
margin-bottom:-0.3245em;
}

<span class="dropcaps">T</span>

A slight problem is that this code doesn't work the same way in epub format. Looking at preview in Sigil and Calibre, capital letter is off, but in Kindle Previewer it's then properly formatted. So it takes a bit of packing and unpacking from epub to kfx when adjusting things.

Also, it's not as pleasing visually in case of very short paragraphs, or when very small fonts settings are selected. But by the looks of it, typesetters in old paperbacks did it in a very similar way: https://archive.org/details/producer...p?view=theater (page 28, page 38, page 157...)

I'm just wonder now if there's a way to tune it so that it looks the same in epub and in kindle's format without changing the code.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jackm8

Thanks. It's surprisingly easy. Code works on .epubs that are then converted to .kfx with KFX Output plugin.

All that's needed is "span.dropcaps" into styles.css, then <span class="dropcaps">T</span> around first capital letter in the chapter, replacing the T.


A slight problem is that this code doesn't work the same way in epub format. Looking at preview in Sigil and Calibre, capital letter is off, but in Kindle Previewer it's then properly formatted. So it takes a bit of packing and unpacking from epub to kfx when adjusting things.

Also, it's not as pleasing visually in case of very short paragraphs, or when very small fonts settings are selected. But by the looks of it, typesetters in old paperbacks did it in a very similar way: https://archive.org/details/producer...p?view=theater (page 28, page 38, page 157...)

I just wonder now if there's a way to tune it so that it looks the same in epub and in kindle's format without changing the code.

Do you know that your drop-cap span has broken searching? The first work in the chatter cannot be found with a search.

Yes you can have the same code for ePub and KF8/KFX. But one thing you need to do in the ePub is set the line-height the same as that of the Kindle. Also, you may need to use the same font. ON my Kobo, I can override your choice of font and that can spoil your drop cap. On a Reader, drop cap really should not be used as there are many cases where it's a fail.

[jackm8]

Do you know that your drop-cap span has broken searching? The first work in the chatter cannot be found with a search.

I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about. If it's search dialogue, I don't think that it's causing any problems. There appears to be a slight discrepancy in the count between Kindle Previewer and file on the device, still, in both cases "There" at the start of chapter two was picked up. It was correctly found in epub format as well in Neat Reader.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by jackm8

Amazons site mentions Drop caps as a feature in their Advanced Typesetting blurb. Does anyone know of any book example where they are used?

Here is what I use:

.text-dropcap {
  float: left;
  line-height: 32%;
  margin-top: 0.24em;
  margin-right: 0.05em;
  margin-bottom: 0;
  margin-left: 0;
  font-size: 315%; /* ePub 2 lines */
  font-weight: bold;
}

@media amzn-kf8 {
  .text-dropcap {
	  /* font-size: 265%; /* 3 lines */
    font-size: 150%; /* 2 lines */
  }
}

Then, just <p><span class="text-dropcap">T</span>he dropcap demo.</p>.

KFX responds to the "amzn-kf8" media query, so that allows you to customize the font size. You have to use a much smaller font size than you would for EPUB. It appears that Amazon is using something like the draft CSS initial-letter, where all you supply is the size and and the renderer automatically figures out how to locate the drop cap where it belongs.

Unfortunately, my code won't work with actual KF8, because KF8 uses the same sizing as EPUB, but the media query overrides that.