First Word or Letter taking two lines or three in a paragraph

Question

Some articles start with its first word or letter in its first paragraph taking up the space of two lines or three lines. For example, it might look like the picture below (ignoring the rules). Is there a way to do this in LaTeX, please? Thank you! I did not find any similar question. Please let me know if this is a duplicate.

Answer 1

Updated Answer

The method demonstrated below is now available as a package, cfr-initials from CTAN and is included in TeX Live. The package provides 23 .sty files. Each one provides LaTeX commands supporting one of the 23 fonts provided by initials.

[Two of these fonts appear to be identical or almost identical. This is not my fault!]

You can then use the initials with lettrine by loading the relevant package and using the commands explained in the documentation for cfr-initials and lettrine.

The following example demonstrates all 23 fonts. Obviously, you should not try combining them all in a real document!

Code for demo

\documentclass[british,a4paper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lettrine}
\usepackage{microtype}
\usepackage[headheight=12pt,vscale=.95]{geometry}
\usepackage{parskip}
\usepackage{Acorn, AnnSton, ArtNouv, ArtNouvc, Carrickc, Eichenla, Eileen, EileenBl, Elzevier, GotIn, GoudyIn, Kinigcap, Konanur, Kramer, MorrisIn, Nouveaud, Romantik, Rothdn, Royal, Sanremo, Starburst, Typocaps, Zallman}
\makeatletter
\newcommand\lettrinetest[1]{% text is from the kantlipsum package
  \setcounter{DefaultLines}{3}%
  \renewcommand{\rmdefault}{fnc}%
  \gdef\fontlist{#1}%
  \@for \xx:=\fontlist \do {%
        %       \lettrinetest{\xx}
        \renewcommand\LettrineFontHook{\xx}%
        \lettrine{A}{s} any dedicated reader can clearly see, the Ideal of practical reason is a representation of, as far as I know, the things in themselves; as I have shown elsewhere, the phenomena should only be
        used as a canon for our understanding.}}
\makeatother
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}

\lettrinetest{%
  \Royal,
  \Romantik,
  \ArtNouvfamily,
  \EileenBlfamily,
  \Zallmanfamily,
  \Sanremofamily,
  \Konanurfamily,
  \Starburstfamily,
  \Typocapsfamily,
  \ArtNouvcfamily,
  \Kinigcapfamily,
  \Kramerfamily
}
\clearpage
\lettrinetest{%
  \Acornfamily,
  \AnnStonfamily,
  \Elzevier,
  \Rothdnfamily,
  \Eichenlafamily,
  \MorrisInfamily,
  \Carrickcfamily,
  \Nouveaudfamily,
  \GoudyInfamily,
  \Eileenfamily,
  \GotInfamily
}
\end{document}

Original Answer

Standard TeX distributions come with a set of ornamental and decorative fonts suitable for lettrines. These do not have .sty files unless you write them and the .fd files are not named according to the standard schema.

However, if you provide your own .sty file or equivalent code, they are easy to use for this purpose.

Here are just two of the twenty-three possibilities included in initials:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{fouriernc}
\usepackage{lettrine}
\input Typocaps.fd

\DeclareRobustCommand{\Typocapsfamily}{%
  \fontencoding{U}%
  \fontseries{xl}%
  \fontshape{n}%
  \fontfamily{Typocaps}%
  \selectfont}

\input Kramer.fd

\DeclareRobustCommand{\Kramerfamily}{%
  \fontencoding{U}%
  \fontseries{xl}%
  \fontshape{n}%
  \fontfamily{Kramer}%
  \selectfont}

\setcounter{DefaultLines}{3}

\begin{document}
  \renewcommand\LettrineFontHook{\Kramerfamily}
  \lettrine{A}{s} any dedicated reader can clearly see, the Ideal of practical reason is a representation of, as far as I know, the things in themselves; as I have shown elsewhere, the phenomena should only be
  used as a canon for our understanding.
  The paralogisms of practical reason are what first give rise to the architectonic of practical reason. As will easily be shown in the next section, reason would thereby be made to contradict, in view of these considerations, the Ideal of practical reason, yet the manifold depends on the phenomena.
  Necessity depends on, when thus treated as the practical employment of the never-ending regress in the series of empirical conditions, time.
  Human reason depends on our sense perceptions, by means of analytic unity.
  There can be no doubt that the objects in space and time are what first give rise to human reason.

  \renewcommand\LettrineFontHook{\Typocapsfamily}
  \lettrine{A}{s} any dedicated reader can clearly see, the Ideal of practical reason is a representation of, as far as I know, the things in themselves; as I have shown elsewhere, the phenomena should only be
  used as a canon for our understanding.
  The paralogisms of practical reason are what first give rise to the architectonic of practical reason. As will easily be shown in the next section, reason would thereby be made to contradict, in view of these considerations, the Ideal of practical reason, yet the manifold depends on the phenomena.
  Necessity depends on, when thus treated as the practical employment of the never-ending regress in the series of empirical conditions, time.
  Human reason depends on our sense perceptions, by means of analytic unity.
  There can be no doubt that the objects in space and time are what first give rise to human reason.
\end{document}