Non-Designer’s Type Book, The, Second Edition

Initial Caps

You can also create a quick initial cap with baseline shift. Change the size and font and perhaps color of the first letter. If it disrupts the line spacing, select the entire paragraph and apply a fixed amount of leading (just type in a number —don’t use “auto”; see Chapter 15). Then select the first letter and apply the baseline shift downward—making sure the baseline of the letter aligns on one of the baselines of the paragraph! (See Chapter 24 for lots of suggestions for initial caps.)

In this paragraph, I selected the “T” and changed its typeface and size. I used the technique in Chapter 5 (hard space and kerning) to hang the “T” so it aligned with the rest of the text. I used the baseline shift feature to drop the bottom of ...