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We have just upgraded to Quark Xpress 8, and opening our legacy Quark 6.x documents we are having the following problem: We have a paragraph style which specifies a one character, three line drop cap on a style named T1 DROP CAP. The style renders correctly for paragraphs within approximately the first 32,000 characters of text (flowing through a simple four-column layout over multiple pages -- more-or-less tabloid in size). Thereafter, the drop caps fail: the drop cap letter resizes correctly, but it aligns to the paragraph baseline (i.e. doesn't drop), overlapping the end of the previous paragraph, and the T1 DROP CAP paragraph doesn't align correctly -- sometimes runs too short, sometimes text renders outside the text box into the margin. The same problem occurs when a paragraph has a drop cap applied to it individually (i.e. Style > Formats... > Drop Cap) if that paragraph is after the 32,000 character watershed. So it seems unlikely that the problem is related to the stylesheet itself. Our workaround is to break longer articles into

Ben Campbell:

Our workaround is to break longer articles into

Into what? C'mon…the suspense is killing me…

Seriously though, have you tried thumbnail dragging to a new Quark 8 file or appending the layout? That's what they used to say about legacy docs with Quark 7, so maybe worth a try.

I have had the very same problem myself. I tried both thumbnail drag and appending the document without resolving the problem. I eventually found that the solution was to break the text at the point where the error first appeared. I then made a new text box (not linked to the previous flow), pasted in the remaining text, and finally linked this to text boxes on subsequent pages. Although the same fault occurred later in the same document, it never occurred to me that it could be related to the number of characters involved. Martin

 Yes, sorry about that... I'm using Firefox now so this should be better

Thanks for the thumbnail dragging tip -- If I ever knew that technique I'd forgotten it. Unfortunately, just tried it and the problem persists. And, as I'm sure you guessed, the workaround is to cut the source text into < 32,000 character chunks.

 Do I understand correctly that you have a single paragraph that is more than 32,000 characters, or do you mean one story? That sounds like a pretty big paragraph.

No, it's one story with many paragraphs. The problem is that the style will no longer apply to any paragraph which begins after approximately the first 32,000 characters of the story. We've tested on Windows XP and OS X 10.4 and 10.5, using various different TrueType and PS Type 1 font  -- same result.

Hi Ben. Is it some kind of text calcing issue? Does it work fine on moving the text box (in which the Drop Cap character is not displaying properly)

 Hi Sirish, no definitely not. In fact I've just created a new document -- i.e. not working with legacy Quark 6.x data -- and exactly the same thing happens -- after ~32,000 characters paragraphs the drop caps fail. I have tried using text imported from both HTML and MS Word files (using a document of around 85,000 characters) with various fonts, on both Windows XP and Mac OS X.This happens either where the paragraph is styled with a style sheet or the paragraph is individually styled using Style > Formats... > Drop Cap

Migman, my 160-page medical textbook document is broken into about a dozen separate chapters, each containing multiple questions and answers using the same style sheets that I have employed countless times in Quark 7. Each answer should begin with a drop cap. The failure to correctly format the caps showed itself approximately a third of the way (which could be around the 32,000 characters quoted by Ben Campbell) through the text - and again later - on the first occasion that I created a new document in Quark 8. The correct drop caps were only restored when I pasted the offending portion of text into a newly created text chain or a brand new document.

martinbd, it sounds like you are experiencing the same thing as Ben Campbell. If I understand you correctly, the drop caps work correctly in every chapter unless the story is longer than aproximately 32,000 characters, at which point the drop caps fail. Unless someone comes up with a solution to this problem, you may want to break the long stories into smaller ones.

And do I understand correctly that having a 32,000 character story doesn't break the document, just that story (i.e. other, shorter stories are OK within the same document)?

Yes, migman, you are correct and, as I said in my post, I am already breaking long chapters at the point where the drop caps fail, although I'm hoping this won't be necessary after the first Quark application update!

Ben, Could we get a CFO of one of the docs that is misbehaving? Send me a PM so we can set it up. I'd like to get a look at what's going off there. Regards, Rob Keeble Tech Lead, Text & Typography Quark, Inc.

I have searched the forums and still do not see a fix or workaround for this drop cap issue. I am working on a 400+ page novel with a drop cap at the beginning of each chapter. The first few chapters work fine but by the fourth chapter the drop cap feature no longer works. The first letter gets large but the baseline does not drop and the first line break is not correct. I would rather not break the book into separate sections just as a workaround for a software bug. Is there a fix in the works?

Hi Ben,

Update to QuarkXPress 8.02 and check the results.

 FYI (everyone), I didn't have Quark 8 when I first saw this thread, so I couldn't test it myself. I now have 8.02, and a quickie test with over 100,000 charcters jabbered into one story displayed the drop caps correctly, so I guess the problem is fixed.