Drop Cap Option Greyed

[briank]

I am having some trouble using the drop cap option in Word 2002. I have
highlighted the first letter of the first word of the paragraph, clicked
format and cannot go any further because the drop cap command is not
available (greyed out). Any ideas of how to get this working?
TY

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Are you sure it's the first letter? It's not preceded by a space or tab or
anything else?

 

[briank]

You are correct. I never realized that point but I am trying to drop cap the
first word of the 2nd paragraph. Can this be done?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Yes. You can create a Drop Cap from any number of selected characters at the
beginning of any paragraph. The drop cap is created using a frame, so this
won't work if your text is in a text box.

 

[briank]

Fortunately my text is not in a frame. The page in this scenario is as
follows:
Line 1- 9 characters <enter>
Line 2 - 14 characters with expanded characters and text shading <enter>
Line 3 - <enter>
Line 4 - Paragraph with indentation

Can you identify how to drop cap the first letter of first word in my
paragraph starting on line 3?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Line three appears to be an empty paragraph, so how is there anything there
to make a drop cap out of? Also, if you want the first character of the
paragraph beginning on line 4 to be a drop cap, you'll have to ditch the
first-line indent (if that's what you mean by "indentation"). Word can't do
a drop cap in a paragraph with a first-line indent because it would drop
into the middle of the paragraph.

 

[briank]

Thank you. It works gr8.

Line three appears to be an empty paragraph, so how is there anything there
to make a drop cap out of? Also, if you want the first character of the
paragraph beginning on line 4 to be a drop cap, you'll have to ditch the
first-line indent (if that's what you mean by "indentation"). Word can't do
a drop cap in a paragraph with a first-line indent because it would drop
into the middle of the paragraph.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

 

[Fredrik E. Nilsen]

Word can't do drop cap in a paragraph with a first-line indent because it would drop into the middle of the paragraph.

Yes, it can.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Well, I'm seeing that behavior today, but I certainly didn't yesterday: the
menu item was dimmed. Go figure.

 

[Fredrik E. Nilsen]

Well, I'm seeing that behavior today, but I certainly didn't yesterday: the
menu item was dimmed. Go figure.

If you insert a tab character instead of an first line indent, drop
cap is unavailable.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I don't think that was the issue (though I did inquire about whether the OP
had a space or tab before the first character). What I probably did have was
a space before the first character. Oddly, even if you select the space with
the character, Format | Drop Cap is disabled; although you can select an
entire word and drop it, you can't drop a word or letter with a leading
space or tab. Interesting.