From: wilhelm.buehler@cs.uni-sb.de (Wilhelm Buehler)
Newsgroups: de.comp.tex
Subject: drop.doc (was: Re: Initialen)
Date: 28 Aug 92 20:46:02 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, U of the Saarland, Germany


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%  DROP.DOC <February 17, 1988>
%  Macro for dropping and enlarging the first letter(s) of a paragraph.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%
%  Macro written by David G. Cantor, and published Fri, 12 Feb 88, in
%  TeXhax, 1988 #16.
%  Internet:  dgc@math.ucla.edu
%  UUCP:      ...!{ihnp4, randvax, sdcrdcf, ucbvax}!ucla-cs!dgc
%
%  Modified for use with LaTeX by Dominik Wujastyk, February 17, 1988
%  Internet:   dow@wjh12.harvard.edu
%  Bitnet:     dow@harvunxw.bitnet
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%
%  This LaTeX macro is for dropping and enlarging the first letter(s) of a
%  paragraph.  The argument may be one or more letters.
%
%  Here is an example of its usage:
%
%  \documentstyle[drop]{article}
%  \begin{document}
%    \drop{IN} THE beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  Now the
%    earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the
%    deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.
%  \end{document}
%
%  Which will produce something along these lines:
%
%  I I\  I THE beginning God  created the heaven and  the earth.
%  I I \ I Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was
%  I I  \I upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hov-
%  ered over the face of the waters.
%
%  In the first instance the macro will pause during LaTeX processing and
%  ask you for the font you wish to use for you drop capital.  When you
%  have something that looks good, then comment out box one in DROP.STY,
%  and comment in box two, replacing "cmr10 scaled \magstep5" with the font
%  of your choice.
%
%  In my opinion (DW) there are no fonts available in the standard
%  TeX/LaTeX set that are ideal for this use, unless you go down to 9pt or %
 8pt for your text face, and this is too small.  If you have Metafont you
%  should consider generating a cmr17 font at a magstep of two (about 25pt)
%  or three (about 30pt), or even more, depending on the point size of your
%  main text.  Why not go the whole hog and design some really fancy
%  capitals from scratch!
%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% BOX ONE %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\typein[\dropinitialfont]{Font for Dropped initial:}  %
\font\largefont \dropinitialfont                      %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% BOX TWO %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%\font\largefont= cmr10 scaled \magstep5              %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
 
\def\drop#1#2{{\noindent
    \setbox0\hbox{\largefont #1}\setbox1\hbox{#2}\setbox2\hbox{(}%
    \count0=\ht0\advance\count0 by\dp0\count1\baselineskip
    \advance\count0 by-\ht1\advance\count0by\ht2
    \dimen1=.5ex\advance\count0by\dimen1\divide\count0 by\count1
    \advance\count0 by1\dimen0\wd0
    \advance\dimen0 by.25em\dimen1=\ht0\advance\dimen1 by-\ht1
    \global\hangindent\dimen0\global\hangafter-\count0
    \hskip-\dimen0\setbox0\hbox to\dimen0{\raise-\dimen1\box0\hss}%
    \dp0=0in\ht0=0in\box0}#2}
Newsgroups: de.comp.tex