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When using lettrine to draw big capitals, the first word after the initial is never in alignment with the lines below. It does not follow the same "margin line", as it were, and it links up with the initial before it.

If possible, I would prefer to avoid this, and have the first word after the lettrine capital be in alignment with the lines underneath (see the attached image).

Sample code:

\documentclass[10pt]{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{lettrine}

\begin{document}

\lettrine{E}{xample} \lipsum[1]

\end{document}

Which produces the image attached. Is there any way to make the circled "X" respect the red line drawn?

Put the X *after* the red line, not before.

Joel Dacasa
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  • It helps, but it does not quite fix the problem. It pushes the letter right, but if I enlarge the capital even more, it still does not sit in alignment with the lines below. – Joel Dacasa Nov 24 '19 at 12:11
  • I am looking for an initial that acts like a "box", with all lines around it starting at the same x-value (horizontally). See this historical example: https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7220/7005423135_10693f9b34.jpg – Joel Dacasa Nov 24 '19 at 12:16
  • For the default settings you can use \lettrine{E}{\hspace*{0.5em}xample} because the default nindent is 0.5em. The output you seem to be looking for is obtained e.g. here. –  Nov 24 '19 at 12:24
  • Perfect! While it would be nice to have a general command that removed this negative indent for all instances of lettrine in a single document, this works just fine. Thank you! – Joel Dacasa Nov 24 '19 at 12:25

1 Answers1

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The placement of the second line w.r.t. the beginning of the first line (after the lettrine itself) depends on the value of nindent. It is 0.5em by default. The placement of the beginning of the first line depends on the value of findent(0pt by default). So the simplest is to change the defaults of both nindent and findent:

\documentclass[10pt]{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{lettrine}
 \setlength{\DefaultFindent}{0.25em}
 \setlength{\DefaultNindent}{0pt}

\begin{document}

\lettrine{E}{xample} \lipsum[1]

\end{document}

enter image description here

Bernard
  • 271,350
  • Isn't that precisely what https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/298395 does? –  Nov 24 '19 at 12:26
  • Yes. I didn't know this answer, but I notice that both question and answer use one of my favourite texts when I'm fed up with \lipsum (Edward Lear's nonsense book The Seven Families of Lake Pipple-Popple) :) – Bernard Nov 24 '19 at 12:33