Multiline title sided by epigraph

Question

I want to customize one of my chapter titles to emphasize its acronym. I believe that splitting it onto multiple lines it a good solution, but I would also like to make the first letters stand out. Also, I note there is a lot of white space on the right, but I figured I should be able to move the epigraph there. How could I achieve this?

What I have:

What I want:

Ideally, there would be a better way to emphasize the SLAM letters than colour. I was thinking of multi-line letters, similar to this, but I don't know where I can get those from:

I am open to other suggestions :)

Thank you!

---

My MWE is quite involved and doesn't look exactly like what I have (the epigraph with is smaller, but it doesn't matter).

\documentclass[12pt]{report}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\usepackage{lmodern}        % use modern latin fonts
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}    % use 8 bit output font encoding with more glyphs
\usepackage{xcolor}         % more color choices
\usepackage[english=british]{csquotes} % for correct use of `` '' ... meh!
\usepackage{blindtext}

% an epigraph is a small 'inspirational' text displayed at the beggining of a chapter
\usepackage{epigraph}
\setlength{\epigraphwidth}{.8\textwidth}
\renewcommand{\textflush}{flushleft}
\renewcommand{\epigraphflush}{center}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% provided by school in a .sty file
\topmargin -45truept     %    Nominal distance from top of paper to top of page
\textwidth=159truemm
\oddsidemargin=0truemm \evensidemargin=0truemm
\makeatletter
\@ifclassloaded{slides}
  {\textheight 240truemm}
  {
        \ifcase \@ptsize
            % mods for 10 pt (\baselineskip=12pt)
            \textheight 682pt  % Height of text (including footnotes and figures)
        \or % mods for 11 pt (\baselineskip=13.6pt)
            \textheight 690 pt    % Height of text (including footnotes and figures)
        \or % mods for 12 pt  (\baselineskip=15pt)
            \textheight 685 pt    % Height of text (including footnotes and figures)
        \fi
  }
\makeatother
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\title{Title}
\author{Me}

%% =============================================================================
% This should be in .cls file, ideally
% Remove "Chapter x" line before a new chapter
\makeatletter
\renewcommand{\@makechapterhead}[1]{%
\vspace*{35 pt}% Space before the chapter name
{\setlength{\parindent}{0pt} \raggedright \normalfont
\bfseries\Huge
#1% The chapter's name
\par\nobreak\vspace{35 pt}}} % Space after chapter name
\makeatother

%% =============================================================================

\begin{document}

\chapter[Simultaneous Localisation And Mapping]{Simultaneous\\Localisation\\And\\Mapping}

% no idea why in my real report this is wider ...
\epigraph{`` Using sensory information to locate the robot in its environment is the most fundamental problem to provide a mobile robot with autonomous capabilities. ''}{Ingemar J Cox, 1990}

\blindtext[5]

\end{document}

Answer 1

\epigraphhead can be used to place the epigraph appropriately. The exact distance adjustment depends on the content of the chapter title and epigraph. See the documentation for details. Obviously, this also requires adjusting the alignment and width of the epigraph appropriately.

For the first letters, I experimented with one of the decorative fonts supported by the emerald package. See the documentation for installation instructions as this is not included in TeX Live.

I've also switched to geometry as this is generally better than setting layout dimensions manually. Note that it matters that you set the epigraph width after changing \textwidth if it is specified relative to that dimension.

Finally, I note that you are not, in fact, using British English quotation marks but American English. I don't know whether this matters to you or not, but it seemed odd.

I would, in any case, not recommend using quotation marks around an epigraph. It is like putting them around a block quotation, although not, perhaps, as definitely incorrect as I'm not sure what punctuation rules exist for epigraphs. It looks odd to me, let's say.

In any case, here is the result

\documentclass[12pt]{report}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[english=british]{csquotes}
\usepackage{blindtext}
\usepackage{epigraph,etoolbox}
\renewcommand{\textflush}{flushleft}
% \renewcommand{\epigraphflush}{center}
\usepackage[textwidth=159mm, hmargin ratio=1:1, vmargin ratio=3:2, verbose]{geometry}
\makeatletter
\AtEndPreamble{%
  \normalfont
  \ifcase \@ptsize
    \geometry{textheight=240mm}%
    \or
    \geometry{textheight=243mm}%
    \or
    \geometry{textheight=241mm}%
  \fi
}
\makeatother
\setlength{\epigraphwidth}{.4\textwidth}

\title{Title}
\author{Me}

\makeatletter
\renewcommand{\@makechapterhead}[1]{%
  \vspace*{35 pt}% Space before the chapter name
  {\setlength{\parindent}{0pt} \raggedright \normalfont
    \bfseries\Huge
    #1
    \par\nobreak\vspace{35 pt}}}
\makeatother

\newcommand*\fcap[1]{{\myfancyfont #1}}
\usepackage{emerald}
\let\myfancyfont\ECFDecadenceWithoutTheDiamonds

\begin{document}

\chapter[Simultaneous Localisation And Mapping]{\fcap Simultaneous\\\fcap Localisation\\\fcap And\\\fcap Mapping}
\epigraphhead[150]{\epigraph{\raggedleft `` Using sensory information to locate the robot in its environment is the most fundamental problem to provide a mobile robot with autonomous capabilities. ''}{Ingemar J Cox, 1990}}

\blindtext[5]

\end{document}