Using the New Drop Caps Feature Of Mac Pages

The new version of Pages includes a powerful Drop Caps feature with a ton of options. You can use Drop Caps to make the first letter or word of a paragraph stand out. This also works in Keynote and Numbers.

Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today let me show you how to use the new Drop Caps feature in Pages.
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So this is a new feature in Pages version 10.0 so make sure you've updated your version of Pages. To create a Drop Cap in a paragraph you need to put your cursor in the paragraph. So it could be blinking at the beginning or be at the end. You could select it and it doesn't really matter as long as the cursor is in the paragraph because it's something that affects the entire paragraph although it's only the first letter that's going to change.
Now that you've got that you want to go to Format in the sidebar and then Style. Go all the way to the bottom and you'll see Drop Cap as the very last thing. There's a checkbox and also a little menu where you can choose some styles. You can turn the Drop Cap on by simply checking the box or choosing a style. That will check the box. I'll check it and it will choose the default Drop Cap. So you can see here I have a large first letter that goes through three lines and pushes all three lines over to the right.
Now I can switch to one of these other styles by clicking here and choosing one of these. So here is the capital letter sticking out above the first line. In this one we get a letter that covers four lines and the lines mold to the shape of the letter. Here we have one that goes out to the left and the rest of the text if flush with the left margin. Here's one that's kind of in the center. The letter if right in the middle of the left margin. Here's one where the letter is actually white with a black background with little curved corners. Now these are just suggested styles. You don't have to use any one of the these.
So let's go back to the first default one. Then instead we're going to scroll down and we can now see that the checkbox is checked. We have three different controls here. The first is the number of lines. So I could reduce that to say only two lines or I can increase it to four lines or however many I want. Also the number of characters. So here I've the first letter. But I can increase that to include the second letter or maybe the first five letters. Now that's the most basic settings. Under Options you have a lot more. 
Click that and you have this separate menu here with all sorts of controls. First the number of Raised Lines which is zero. If I increase that to one you could see it raises the drop cap one line above the text. It can do that to one less than the number of lines high that the Drop Cap is. So in this case it's three lines. I can have it go up two above. Then I have Text Wrapping. So I can have it wrap closer to the letter like that or have it in a straight line. I have Extra Spacing so I could add a little extra spacing here to the right side if I think I need it. 
Also the Outdent. Now the Outdent is how far to the left the letter is moved over. If I go far over, say I go 200% here, 100% will actually put it kind of with the right side of the letter flush with the left margin. Zero puts the left side of the letter flush with the left margin.
In addition I can check a Background Shape and I have a whole bunch of extra controls. So now I can set a color for a background shape. I can select any color. I can use the Color wheel if I want. Even set it to semi-transparent or completely transparent. I can choose a border. So I can do a line border to go around it. Set the size of the border and the color of the border. Change the border type. All the standard borders are here. I can also choose the Character Scale. So here it's 80% of the size of the background. I can go to 100% of the size of the background or down to something very small. The Corner Radius I can go all the way to the left there to make it a square or I can go all the way to the right to make it a circle. When you do that notice the size of the letter changes. So the character scale and the corner radius are related.
Now to change the color of the character itself you don't do that in here. You do that in the normal styling. So I could select that letter there and I could change it. So I can make it say a light gray and then I could go here to the Drop Cap Options and make the background black and have it kind of be an inverse letter there. I like the idea of making it something circular. Maybe a thicker border there and maybe having the color of the border match the color of the letter. So something like that. 
Typically when you do a Drop Cap you're going to want to have a special font. So here you just change the font of that letter just like you would any other piece of text. So here I'm going to go and choose a different font. Let's go and choose this one right here and then I get a nice fancy letter there. 
Once you get something you like you can save it. Remember these styles here. Well, these work like regular styles in Pages. So I can flip through using these arrows here and I could see that I've got a second page here that's blank with a little plus button. I could click plus and you see it saves that style. Now I can go to another paragraph, maybe further down, go to this paragraph here and I can apply that style by going to the Drop Cap section. Click on that button there and go to the second page of Styles and you could see the one I've saved. Click that and it instantly applies that to this paragraph. So I have the same thing in both places. 
These styles are updatable. So if I go here and I say well, it'll look better without the black background. So let me go in and change Options. Change the background color to white. So now in here if I go and I can see the Styles I can Control click on this and get Redefine Style From Selection. Now when I go back up to the first paragraph you can see, since I was using that same style, by redefining the style it applied it to previous places to where that style was used. So I can have a whole bunch of Drop Caps throughout my entire book and then update them all easily like that.
Now you can use this in both Keynote and Pages. So here I am in Keynote. I just have a piece of text on a slide. You can see I have the paragraph selected and under Format, Text I have the same Drop Cap options here. So it works normally in Keynote. In Numbers it works a little bit differently. So here in Numbers I've created a text box and there's no way for me to do it on text in a text box. The Drop Caps option just doesn't appear. The documentation even says it works inside of Shapes. So here I've created a rectangular shape and pasted text into that and it works fine in there. You can see I have Drop Caps under Format, Text, Drop Cap. So if you want to use it in Numbers for some reason you need to do it in a shape. But it works in Keynote just fine in a normal text box.

Comments: 4 Responses to “Using the New Drop Caps Feature Of Mac Pages”

Laraine

4 years ago

Thanks, Gary. I had just downloaded the latest version of Pages so it was great to learn this feature had been added.

nick

hi Gary, I have Pages v8 in High Sierra, don't really wanna upgrade the OS on this computer, is there a way to get the new Pages without upgrading the OS?

Gary Rosenzweig

nick: I don't think so. You'll need macOS 10.15.4 for it to be compatible. Why don't you want to upgrade. Sounds like you need something the new software has, so...

Don't wanna get too much off topic Gary but have had issues with some apps in my 2012 MacMini and when I read the pros and cons of upgrading the OS I decided not to take a chance and wait until I get a new one :)

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Using the New Drop Caps Feature Of Mac Pages

Comments: 4 Responses to “Using the New Drop Caps Feature Of Mac Pages”

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