I read with interest a post today from Frank, aka PCGuy, who was talking about the ability to incorporate a feature called the “drop cap” on his posts. Frank wrote:
With all the frustration that has come with the recent changes that WordPress.com has made to their blogging platform, I though it might be good to shed a little light on a good thing that I have discovered. It’s small, but it makes a big difference in the visual appearance of your text. If you take a look at the settings when you use the paragraph block in the new Gutenberg [block] editor, you’ll see an option for a drop cap.
As Frank noted, this ability to incorporate the drop cap functionality is accessible in the paragraph block within the block editor.
Oh well, I thought, that’s too bad because I hate the block editor and refuse to use it. So I guess I’m SOL if I ever wanted to incorporate a drop cap into my posts.
But then Frank pointed out that having to use the block editor is not entirely accurate. He wrote that one can accomplish inserting a drop cap using the classic editor by leveraging a simple HTML command, which Frank was kind enough to share with his readers:
<p class=”has-drop-cap”>
Now I can honestly say that I never gave much thought to using the drop catch functionality on my posts, but after reading Frank’s post, I figured I’d give it a try using the classic editor available in the WordPress iOS app for the iPhone. So I wrote this paragraph:
“This is a test to see if, within the classic editor on the iPhone’s WordPress iOS app, I can use the Drop Cap functionality without having to use the block editor.”
Then I copied that brief paragraph, selected the “Switch to HTML Mode” in the iOS app, and surrounded the “T” at the begging of the paragraph with the HTML expression that Frank offered. In HTML, here’s what it looks like.
<p class=”has-drop-cap”>T</p>his is a test to see if….
Then I pasted that edited paragraph below and this is what it looks like in the preview mode after I added the HTML to that line.
T
his is a test to see if, within the classic editor on the iPhone’s WordPress iOS app, I can use the Drop Cap functionality without having to use the block editor.
Pretty cool, huh? That said, I may or may not use the drop cap functionality in future posts. But thanks, Frank. It’s alway fun to learn how to do something on my blog that I didn’t know how to do before, especially when I can do it without using the goddam block editor.
This, That, and the Other 
It seems like a lot of trouble just to get a large T.
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Yeah, I’m not sure it’s worth the effort.
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Thank you for sharing!!
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I think it’s nifty.
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I used to use the drop cap in the regular text until they removed it and put it in the business only package. There are a whole LOT of things that were part of my package that they have taken away and that is one of the many reasons i do not trust them. What’s to say that if you manage to use the new format that they won’t take away some MORE pieces and I’ll be paying more … and getting less.
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I know. The only entities I trust less than WordPress these days are the Trump administration and the U.S. Senate.
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I’m saving this post for future reference
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That’s a pretty useful hack, though I’ve ported over to the block editor because why not at this point. Thanks for sharing!
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Why not? For me it’s because I blog on my iPhone, not on my laptop. And the block editor is close to impossible to use on an iPhone.
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There are issues when it comes to copying/pasting text. I agree it looks good, but I avoid.
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I like the idea of the drop cap but every time I’ve used it I have decided that I don’t like the way it looks. I think I make them too big. So I usually end up deleting it.
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Unfortunately, Fandango, it doesn’t work in my WP Reader. The T appears normal size and in a separate paragraph altogether.
I don’t know what percentage of readers read via a reader or go directly to your web page but it may be better to satisfy all possibilities.
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T
his is a test to see if, within the classic editor on the iPhone’s WordPress iOS app, I can use the Drop Cap functionality without having to use the block editor.
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Uh oh.
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Hmm. That’s not good.
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I read a majority of posts through the reader and thought this was an example of something that didn’t work until I read Ian’s comment. …if they would just go back to the classic editor!
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