special format lost in conversion - epub to mobi

[cybmole]

a have , in a set of books, an element of format which changes in epub to mobi conversion:

in epub source, the 1st letter of each chapter is styled so that it is as large as 3 lines & extends down the side of lines 2 & 3. i,e, the letter I which begins the para below will appear in epub as 3 lines deep, and text will flow to the side of it.
the relevant css is
span.dropcaps {
float: left;
font-size: 50px;
line-height: 50px;
padding-top: 1px;
margin-top: -.09em;
margin-right: .09em;
}
...
p.nonindent{
text-align: justify;
}

span.small{
font-size: x-small;
}


epub text
IT WAS not until the late afternoon that Cecilia judged the vase repaired. It had baked all afternoon on a table by a south-facing window in the library, and now three fine meandering lines in the glaze, converging like rivers in an atlas, were all that showed...

<p class="nonindent"><span class="dropcaps">I</span><span class="small">T WAS</span> not until

when calibre converts that to .mobi, it aligns that large letter I so that the bottom of the I lines up with text line 1 & the I towers above the line. then there is whitespace between line 1 & what follows

is that simply a mobi limitation or is there stuff I can do to make mobi look same as epub ?

I can try to create pictures if my description is not clear, though I am not sure how - screen grabs of both epub & mobi in the calibre viewer I suppose would work.


this is what is see in epub, where the letter I occupies the position of the 3 Xs
X text line 1
X text line 2
X text line 3

& in mobi I see


X
X
X text line 1
...whitepasce
text line2...

i could of course remove the special styling from that 1st letter, & then both formats would be the same, but the epub styling is classy, I'd like to keep it in mobi if at all possible.

[ldolse]

Mobi doesn't support dropcaps.

[cybmole]

i thought that might be the case.

I will keep the epub as-is and accept that it will not look as good in mobi - thanks.