Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Creating a Drop Cap.

Creating a Drop Cap

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated March 15, 2022)

Drop caps are a decorative touch, done through typographical means, that you can apply to your document. Drop caps are traditionally done with the first letter of a chapter or some other major section of a document. To create drop caps, do the following:

Type your paragraph as you normally would.
Make sure the insertion point is somewhere within the paragraph.
Display the Insert tab of the ribbon.
In the Text group, click Drop Cap. Word displays some common options for drop caps.
Choose Drop Cap Options. Word displays the Drop Cap dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Drop Cap dialog box.

Chose the position for your drop cap, according to your preference.
Change any other options to format your drop cap.
Click on OK.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (6023) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Creating a Drop Cap.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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What is seven less than 7?

2016-07-10 10:19:58

Steven Litvintchouk

A further enhancement to drop caps:

Since Microsoft Word implements drop caps as frames, you can define a linked style for them. That way, all the drop caps in your document can be formatted with that same style.

In Word 2007 or later:

Once you have formatted your drop cap just the way you like it, select it and in the Style Gallery, select Create a Style. Name it whatever you want, say My Drop Cap.

Then any time you want to create a drop cap that's formatted the same way, insert a hard return (with the Enter key) just AFTER the character you want to turn into a drop cap. That leaves the character in its own little paragraph separated from the original paragraph, which now follows it.

Now select that one-character paragraph and apply the style My Drop Cap. The drop cap will be created, the hard return will disappear, and the drop cap will be joined to the rest of the original paragraph.

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