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From: xiaofei@acsu.buffalo.edu (Xiaofei Wang)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: Large initial
Message-ID: <53779@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 8 Jan 91 21:01:43 GMT
References: <1869@ruunsa.fys.ruu.nl>
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In article <1869@ruunsa.fys.ruu.nl> spit@ruunsa.fys.ruu.nl (Werenfried Spit) writes:
* DD  oes someone have a TeX macro that produces a large 
* D D initial in the first line of a paragraph, somewhat
* DD  like the big D in front of this one. I figure one
* has to twiddle a little bit with \hangindent, but I do
* not get it completely right. 
* 
* Thanks in advance
* 
* 
The following code was not written by me but I know it works. It is
LaTeX and I will be happy if some one changes it to TeX. The big letter
extendes to two lines, almost. And I would be happy also if some one
can make it bigger or smaller. I don't have good knowledge of LaTeX or
time to do these.

\documentstyle{article}
\begin{document}
\def\bigfirstletter#1#2{{\noindent
    \setbox0\hbox{\Huge #1}\setbox1\hbox{#2}\setbox2\hbox{(}%
    \count0=\ht0\advance\count0 by\dp0\count1\baselineskip
    \advance\count0 by-\ht1\advance\count0 by\ht2
    \dimen1=.5ex\advance\count0 by\dimen1\divide\count0 by\count1
    \advance\count0 by1\dimen0\wd0
    \advance\dimen0 by.25em\dimen1=\ht0\advance\dimen1 by-\ht1
    \global\hangindent\dimen0\global\hangafter-\count0
    \hskip-\dimen0\setbox0\hbox to\dimen0{\raise-\dimen1\box0\hss}%
    \dp0=0in\ht0=0in\box0}#2}
\bigfirstletter
This works very well. The first letter `T' is bigger than the others. See 
where the second line go? Guess what? It is behind T. and also see where 
the third line go? guess what? It is aligned with T.
\end{document}