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Old 01-10-2009, 03:03 PM   #24
mtravellerh
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Quote:
Originally Posted by brewt View Post
Attached are a couple more shots, 1/9 3:40 pm, llasram version, with the largest and smallest typesize selected in ADE.

The proportionality seems consistent with the positioning of the drop cap to the rest of the paragraph. So altering the code to lower the drop cap should continue to provide consistent viewing regardless of size.

The code will have to be tweaked when a different typeface is selected. Or a different porportion of initial cap to regular type size is needed.

Have I pulled the right code out here?


css:
p {
text-indent: 1em;
margin: 0;
}
p.initial {
text-indent: -0.5em
;
}
span.first {
font-variant: small-caps;
}

span.drop {
font-size: 400%;
font-weight: bold;
float: left;
margin: -0.15em 0.125em 0 0;
text-indent: 0em;
line-height: 1em;
height: 1em;
}

.afterA {
text-indent: -1em;
}

.afterL {
text-indent: -1.5em;
}

xhtml for chapter 1:
<p class="initial"><span class="first"><span class="drop">I</span>n</span> the
ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day in the second quarter of the
sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the name of Canty, who
did not want him. ...</p>


xhtml for chapter 13:
<p class="afterA"><span class="first"><span class="drop">A</span>&nbsp;
heavy</span> drowsiness presently fell upon the two comrades. The King
said&mdash;</p>



(Bad Coloring Job Mine. All Mine.)


So, if I've read this right, you've got more than 1 after-the-drop-cap-code, depending on, of course, the width of the letter (I's take up less horizontal space than W's. Err, A's).

Refresh my memory - even without scripting, doesn't css support some kind of variables that could detect the width of the letter for us, so we wouldn't have to hand-tweak the after-spacing on every drop cap? (ever the lazy one, I am).


-bjc
Being lazy myself, how does it look like if one inserts the space on pure principle? Would the I look so bad for that? I'll have to try that, but finally I'll just have to check the practical usage in a book.

I think the
p {
text-indent: 1em;
margin: 0;
}

won't work for me. I will have to define a special p class for the first paragraph as I use points to define my indent, normally (15pt) (works better for mobi making). Or could I use the points for defining the indent? Or do I have to completely rewrite my code for those drop caps, thus having to make 2 source files?

Last edited by mtravellerh; 01-10-2009 at 03:11 PM.
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