CSS DropCap w/o indent

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Are you gonna share, or leave me in the dark????

Hitch

If you mean the MemoQ Tag Shift secret, it's in the quote I posted from Becky's PM - it consolidates numbered links that are sprinkled through a paragraph (sentence) into a list at the end of the paragraph (sentence) - I think.

However, if you're referring to IBM's MQSeries; it's a message queuing middleware product, if you're interested ==>> http://www.dhs.state.pa.us/cs/groups...t/p_032490.pdf. I think they rebranded it to WebSphere Queuing. I used it on a project at an investment bank, that was back in the days when Glass-Steagall was still on the books.

@exaltedwombat - I heard Tim Winton recently, the answer he gave for staying where he was (in Western Australia) and using Aussie vernacular was his love of writers like Faulkner etc. Can't imagine he wouldn't read The New Yorker.

Meridians? Aren't they the lines that wrap themselves around the Earth like the arms of a giant squid?

BR

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by brent63

The problem is I'm also using using first line indent.
So even the first line of the Dropcap is indented, not a very good look. (see attachment)

How can I remove it from the the first line only.

This is a useful trick:

p	{
	margin:1em 0 0 0;
        text-align:justify;
	text-indent:0;
}
p+p	{
	text-indent:1.4em;
        margin:0;
}

The first block defines the first p para in a section (e.g. after a heading tag.)
The p+p defines any subsequent p paragraphs -- how they differ from the first.

Here, the first para in a section has a top margin and is flush left, then following no margins with indent.


You'd use it like

<p><span="Drop">T</span>his is the first para.</p>
<p>And this is the second</p>

Otherwise, you define a new style for the first para:

p	{text-align:justify;
	text-indent:1.4em;
        margin:0;
}
p.first	{
	margin:1em 0 0 0;
        text-indent:0;
}

<p class="first"><span="Drop">T</span>his is the first para.</p>
<p>And this is the second</p>

This is how I usually do it, since my books start as conversions from a DTP file and in that the styles do not cascade, each is defined individually, so I map a DTP style to a HTML style.

I prefer to make the plain p style indented, as that's what 99% of most books is, using styles for the special cases.

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by stumped

I did say it was my personal opinion.
& I have never searched for this, but if there are any reputable studies/surveys as to whether readers WANT dropcaps in their purchased e-books, I'd be interested to see the results. I have seen readability studies only.

but as more and more people read on small screens, my prediction is that they would be down-voted.

Before I started to do DTP professionally, I was clueless as to book design. I just read them. No idea what a serif was.
And now I deal with authors who tell me: "I like Arial, why can't we do my book in that?"

If you've looked at self-published books, from Kindle or even worse, Smashwords, you see the results of design choices made by people without any study of the craft.

So I have a pretty low opinion of what the general public might vote for regarding book design.

However, as you admit, this disdain for styles isn't based on any surveys, simply your own personal opinion, which you are entitled to, but don't project it to what any, let alone most, others think.

Of course, my opinion is just that too. But vastly more cultured and educated people have written books about this.
On opening paragraphs, this is what Robert Bringhurst says in The Elements of Typographic Style, which is the Bible for book design:

Originally Posted by Robert Bringhurst

The simplest way of beginning any block of prose is to start from the margin, flush left, as this paragraph does. On a peaceful page, where the text is announced by a head or subhead, this is enough. But if the text, or a new section of text, begins at the top of a page with no heading to mark it, a little fanfare will probably be required. The same is true if the opening page is busy. If there is a chapter title, an epigraph, a sidenote, and a photograph and caption, the opening of the text will need a banner, a ten-gallon hat or a bright red dress to draw the eye.

And he goes on to discuss drop and elevated caps, fleurons, etc.