7

I want to print initials in the EB Garamond Initials font with the lettrine package. However, the text is overlapping the initial below. Am I doing something wrong with the setup?

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\newfontface{\initials}{EB Garamond Initials}
\setmainfont{EB Garamond}

\usepackage{lettrine}
\setcounter{DefaultLines}{5}
\renewcommand{\LettrineFontHook}{\initials}

\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}
    \lettrine{L}{orem ipsum} dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. \lipsum[2]
\end{document}

enter image description here

| improve this question | | | | |
  • you are cutting out 5 lines, do you want to cut out 7 or make the initial smaller? – David Carlisle Apr 27 '18 at 6:46
  • @DavidCarlisle Let's say make the initial smaller. I basically only changed DefaultLines to make the effect more visable. – John Dorian Apr 27 '18 at 6:49
  • 1
    Try setting the length \DefaultDepth to a positive value, say 2. – Paul Stanley Apr 27 '18 at 7:03
7

It is possible to add lines with the parameter depth=2 . Here, the space below becomes too large, so you can decrease the size of the lettrin with the lowersize=-0.1 parameter and depth=1, which leaves an extra space above that you decrease with lraise=0.1.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\newfontface{\initials}{EB Garamond Initials}
\setmainfont{EB Garamond}

\usepackage{lettrine}
\setcounter{DefaultLines}{5}
\renewcommand{\LettrineFontHook}{\initials}

\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}
    \lettrine[depth=1]% Add 1 line
    {L}{orem ipsum} dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. \lipsum[2]
\bigskip

        \lettrine[depth=2]% Add 2 lines
    {L}{orem ipsum} dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. \lipsum[2]
 \bigskip

        \lettrine[depth=1, loversize=-0.1]%add 1 line and 10% decrease.
    {L}{orem ipsum} dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. \lipsum[2]
\bigskip

        \lettrine[depth=1, loversize=-0.1, lraise=0.1]%add 1 line, 10% decrease and Go up 10%.
    {L}{orem ipsum} dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. \lipsum[2]
\end{document}

Output:

lettrine-examples

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8

The problem is that EB Garamond initials have a depth, which is about 40% of the height. At 10pt font size, the height of L is 7.39227pt, its depth is 2.87pt.

This shows why, when you reserve five lines for the height, two lines are overlapped.

You can play with loversize and lraise:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[latin]{babel}% just to avoid overfull boxes

\usepackage{fontspec}

\usepackage{lettrine}

\usepackage{lipsum}

% fonts
\setmainfont{EB Garamond}
\newfontface{\initials}{EB Garamond Initials}

% lettrine settings
\setcounter{DefaultLines}{5}
\renewcommand{\DefaultLraise}{0.25}
\renewcommand{\DefaultLoversize}{-0.25}
\renewcommand{\LettrineFontHook}{\initials}


\begin{document}

\lettrine{L}{orem ipsum} dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. \lipsum[2]

\end{document}

enter image description here

The following code after \begin{document} will print the dimensions for the letter L in EB Garamond Initials:

{\initials\xdef\initialsfont{\the\font}}
\noindent
Height: \the\fontcharht\initialsfont`L \\
Depth: \the\fontchardp\initialsfont`L

enter image description here

| improve this answer | | | | |
  • How do the numbers 7.39pt and 2.87pt relate to the parameters passed to \DefaultLraise and \DefaultLoversize ? – Tommiie Feb 28 '19 at 14:27
  • @Tommiie I guess I did trial and error. – egreg Feb 28 '19 at 14:40
  • I guess it doesn't matter. I discovered I can only use the letters "A", "G", "T" so I need to find a different solution. Thanks anyway. – Tommiie Feb 28 '19 at 14:43

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