Creating a Drop Caps in Microsoft Publisher

Why would you want to create a drop caps in Microsoft Publisher. To explain I need to ask you a question. You remember those old stories? You know the fairy tales that start "Once upon a time"? They always had a fancy big letter at the beginning. That letter is know as a drop caps. This big letter at the beginning of the first paragraph of a chapter has generally been around for about 2000 years and can still be used today.

This tutorial will show you how to add a drop caps to a paragraph in Microsoft Publisher. It will also guide you through changing the colour of the drop caps as well as the font and the size.

You don't need any exercises for this tutorial, just enjoy it.

What to skip straight to the nitty gritty then go to timestamp 1:38. If you want to know more about this then please feel free to book a Live Online Training Session.

Creating a Drop Caps in Microsoft Publisher

In creating a drop caps in Microsoft Publisher you can do the following:

First, click once in the paragraph you want to add the drop cap to.

Then, click the Text box tab at the top of the screen, after than click on the Drop Cap menu. (This tab may say Format in older version of Publisher and as can be seen in the video).

Now, click on the drop cap you want to use. Alternatively, you can use the Custom Drop Cap option to create a custom drop cap.

You can use this custom drop cap box to decide how the size of the letters, how many letters across you want the drop cap to be and selected whether or not you want to use the current paragraph font.

If you look at the above picture of the drop cap box in Microsoft Publisher you can see that I've unticked the Use Current Font, Font Style and Font Color box. This allows me to choose a font type and colour different to the style that the paragraph is currently using.

By doing this I can use the Old English Text style and colour that letter mustard yellow.

I hope that you find this tutorial about creating a drop cap in Publisher useful. If you have, then you might want to see how you can create a booklet in Microsoft Publisher along with other Publisher tutorials.

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Microsoft Publisher Questions Answered:

Can you create a drop caps as part of a style in Microsoft Publisher? - Sadly no! I haven't found a way to create a drop caps as part of a style so that it automatically appears. However, a possible solution is to save the file as a template that way you could set up the first paragraph with a drop caps and when you start typing the drop cap will be visible.

Also, if you think that you will be using drop caps often in Publisher you could add the drop cap gallery to the quick access toolbar. Right Click on the drop cap and select Add to Quick Access Toolbar.

The drop cap gallery will now be added to the top of the page.