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RobertMcDowellScamp

Greyed-out Drop Caps

My Word document does not allow Drop Caps function - it is greyed out.

Why ?How to fix?

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Doug Robbins - MVP Office Apps & Services (Word)

The selection must be in some text for the facility to be enabled.

Hope this helps,
Doug Robbins - MVP Office Apps & Services (Word)
dougrobbinsmvp@gmail.com

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Suzanne S. Barnhill

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Do you have text selected? Is it at the beginning of a paragraph? The paragraph must be an ordinary text paragraph, not in a table or text box.

Microsoft MVP (Word) since 1999
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://ssbarnhill.com
http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com
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RobertMcDowellScamp

Text is selected. It is the beginning of an ordinary paragraph with no table or text box, and I am not keeping lines together.

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Suzanne S. Barnhill

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Is the first line of the paragraph indented? If so, make sure that the indent is a true first-line indent and not created with a tab character. Drop Cap is not available if any text (tab, space, or other characters) precedes the text selected for dropping.

Microsoft MVP (Word) since 1999
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://ssbarnhill.com
http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com
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Doug Robbins - MVP Office Apps & Services (Word)

Sorry. You last sentence is not correct in the case of everything except a space. With the selection anywhere in the text of a paragraph, including with the first letter of the paragraph preceded by a tab space, or with a number of characters selected, the first character in the paragraph will be formatted as a Drop Cap.

Hope this helps,
Doug Robbins - MVP Office Apps & Services (Word)
dougrobbinsmvp@gmail.com

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Stefan Blom

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Tab characters and/or spaces at the beginning of the paragraph seem to grey out the Drop Cap command. If there are no tab characters or spaces and you select letter(s) later in the paragraph, the command is available.

Stefan Blom
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Please specify Word version & OS in your question

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RobertMcDowellScamp

Thank you all - especially Suzanne.

You are correct - a tab character indent was one cause of the problem.

For future reference, I discovered another issue;

A comment had been made in the document but "Show Comments" was turned off.

The frame created by the comment was also blocking the Drop Cap feature.

Your help is much appreciated...

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Suzanne S. Barnhill

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A comment had been made in the document but "Show Comments" was turned off.

The frame created by the comment was also blocking the Drop Cap feature.

This is something I doubt anyone would have thought of, and I'm surprised that it would have that effect, but this is good to know.

Microsoft MVP (Word) since 1999
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://ssbarnhill.com
http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com
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Stefan Blom

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A comment had been made in the document but "Show Comments" was turned off.

The frame created by the comment was also blocking the Drop Cap feature.

Your help is much appreciated...

You mean that the insertion point was inside a comment? If so, the Drop Cap command would be greyed out, yes.

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GeneralB

Is the first line of the paragraph indented? If so, make sure that the indent is a true first-line indent and not created with a tab character. Drop Cap is not available if any text (tab, space, or other characters) precedes the text selected for dropping.

RobertMcDowellScamp replied on

Thank you all - especially Suzanne.

You are correct - a tab character indent was one cause of the problem.

For future reference, I discovered another issue;

A comment had been made in the document but "Show Comments" was turned off.

The frame created by the comment was also blocking the Drop Cap feature.

Your help is much appreciated...

My issue was a hidden "Section Break" from Track changes. Between your answer Suzanne S. Barnhill and RobertMcDowellScamp's answer, I probed a bit more with Show Comments activated, then Review Pane and All Markup activated.

Newbie developer. Intermediate-Advance MSO.

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Question Info

Last updated April 16, 2025 Views 11,051 Applies to:

Microsoft 365 and Office
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