Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. 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

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 15, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021

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, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. 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...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Inserting Today's Date

When writing letters, reports, or other date-dependent documents, you need to regularly insert the current date in the ...

Discover More

Jumping to a Page within a Section

In long documents it is often helpful to jump directly to a particular page. Word provides several tools you can use to ...

Discover More

Talking to Yourself

Need to keep notes about a document, but you don't want others to see those notes either on-screen or on-paper? Here's an ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2013. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2013 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Applying the All Caps Format

Want your text to always appear in uppercase, regardless of how you type it? Word allows you to add formatting to your ...

Discover More

Underlining Quoted Text

Do you have a document in which you need to convert all the quoted text (text surrounded by quotes) to underlined text? ...

Discover More

Changing Existing Highlighting

Need to change the color you previously used to highlight text in your document? You can use Word's Find and Replace tool ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is two more than 7?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.