Drop caps (lettrine)

A drop cap (a *dropped capital*, or *lettrine* in French) is an opening initial set large enough to drop into the first few lines of a paragraph — the decorative flourish you see at the start of book chapters. In LaTeX the de facto standard is Daniel Flipo’s **lettrine** package. This page covers how to use \lettrine and the key options that tune the cap’s size, overhang, and font.

Basic usage

Load \usepackage{lettrine} in the preamble, then begin a paragraph with \lettrine[options]{T}{he rest}. There are two mandatory arguments. The first, {T}, is the dropped initial itself; the second, {he rest}, is the text that follows it, which by default is set in small capitals. The body of the paragraph then wraps automatically around the right of the cap.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lettrine}
\usepackage{lmodern}      % fully scalable fonts
\begin{document}
\lettrine{L}{orem} ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur
adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut
labore et dolore magna aliqua.
\end{document}

Compiling this places a large L, two lines tall, at the left margin, with “orem” running on in small caps and the paragraph flowing around it. Mind the split: there is no space between {L} and {orem} — the rest of the first word goes straight into the second argument.

One caveat: because lettrine scales the initial to an arbitrary size, it needs a fully scalable font. Computer Modern (CM) and EC fonts ship with only a limited set of sizes by default, so the safe choice is to add \usepackage{lmodern} (Latin Modern), or to use a PostScript/OpenType font such as Palatino or Times. If you must keep CM, load \usepackage{type1cm}; for EC, \usepackage{type1ec}.

The key options

You tune the appearance with comma-separated options inside the brackets. The three you reach for most are lines=, which sets how tall the initial is; lhang=, which lets round letters hang into the left margin; and loversize=, which enlarges the cap beyond the line height.

You can also change these defaults when loading the package: \usepackage[lines=3]{lettrine} makes three lines the document-wide default. Options given to an individual \lettrine then override those defaults.

A worked example

Here the cap is three lines tall and the initial T hangs 20% of its width into the left margin. A letter like T, whose crossbar juts out top-left, looks tighter when allowed to overhang slightly, closing the gap to the body text.

\lettrine[lines=3, lhang=0.2]{T}{his is} the opening paragraph of
a chapter. The initial drops three lines deep, the first word
runs on in small capitals, and the remaining text wraps neatly
around the dropped capital until the paragraph clears it.

The result is a large T, three text-lines tall, with its top-left corner poking just into the margin; “his is” runs on in small caps, and the body wraps down the right of the cap until the paragraph clears it. Likewise, for slanted letters such as A and V, slope= lets the text’s left edge follow the letter’s outline (see the official example \lettrine[lines=4, lraise=0.1, nindent=0em, slope=-.5em]{V}{oici}).

Fonts for the cap and the run-on

The font of the initial is set through the hook \LettrineFontHook, which you change with \renewcommand. Its body uses LaTeX’s low-level font commands — for instance, this sets the dropped capital alone in Palatino bold, expanded, slanted:

\renewcommand{\LettrineFontHook}{\fontfamily{ppl}\fontseries{bx}\fontshape{sl}}

On LuaLaTeX or XeLaTeX you can do this more easily with fontspec: \renewcommand{\LettrineFontHook}{\fontspec{LinLibertine_I.otf}} switches to Linux Libertine’s decorative initials. The same hook can recolour the cap too — \renewcommand{\LettrineFontHook}{\color{gray}{0.5}} makes every following initial grey.

The run-on text (the second argument) is governed by \LettrineTextFont, whose default is \scshape (small caps). To drop the small caps, redefine it, e.g. \renewcommand{\LettrineTextFont}{\rmfamily}. The size of the initial itself is computed automatically from the line count, so there is no need to touch \LettrineFont directly — all customisation goes through the hook.

Where it works, and alternatives

\lettrine works in some places but not others. It works inside quote, quotation, and abstract, but not in verse, and in center only with [lines=1]. It also does not work inside lists. When using it within an environment, you must end the dropped-cap paragraph inside that environment (adding \par if needed).

For alternatives, if you want the initial to be an image, lettrine’s own image=true option handles that (it needs graphicx). There is also the long-standing **Drop** package, and the manual route of combining \hangindent with an enlarged letter — but once you need control over line count, overhang, and font, lettrine is the most reliable choice today.