Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!leah!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!cadre!pitt!cisunx!dcarson
From: dcarson@cisunx.UUCP (David  Carson)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Dropped Caps
Message-ID: <17293@cisunx.UUCP>
Date: 4 Apr 89 04:06:48 GMT
Reply-To: dcarson@cisunx.UUCP (David  Carson)
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Sys
Lines: 36

I use plain TeX and I have written a macro to produce what I call 
"dropped caps"; i.e., the first letter of a major paragraph starts with 
an enormous letter which drops down into the first 4 or 5 lines like so:

	_______
	   |    his is the first line and...
	   |    this is the second and...
	   |    this is the third and so on...
	   |	...

That's the basic idea.  My problem is that I would like to continue using the
Computer Modern family of fonts, but need a font to serve as the enormous
first letter.  I wrote the macro and tested it using Adobe fonts, which I
could scale to any size I wanted.   However, I didn't like the less than
perfect result of the magnification--jagged edges that were quite noticable.
Besides, I don't really want to mix an Adobe font with the CM ones, and don't
want to use an Adobe font for the entire text.

My question is: Is "cminch" the font I ought to use, since it is presumably in
the CM family?  If so, could someone please direct me to a .gf or .pk file
that I can ftp.  (I have access to cminch.mf, but METAFONT couldn't seem to
handle the memory required??  I also have the .tfm file--just need the bitmap
info.)

If "cminch" is not what I need, what is?  (I've never seen what cminch looks
like, so I don't know how it blends with the others.)  

If someone has another solution to doing dropped caps that involves fonts that
are readily available, please run this one by me as well.

Thanks in advance,
David Carson

(Mail me, or post, whichever you please.)
Internet:dcarson@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu
BITNet:dcarson@PITTVMS