2 character drop caps in reflowable epub reordering characters

[OpalR]

Pictured left is the epub version, and on the right is the inDesign version. For some reason, the 2 character drop cap is not exporting properly in epub. Not only is only one character drop capping, but the characters are automatically reordering themselves. Does anyone know how to fix this? I'm a bit stumped at this point.

InDesign steps to recreat drop caps: Paragraph Styles>Drop Caps and Nested Styles>Lines 2 and Characters 2

Please let me know if you have a workaround.

[James Gifford—NitroPress · Accepted solution]

This may be one of the cases where InDesign structure and EPUB (HTML/CSS) structure are simply not the same, and what ID can do cannot be replicated in EPUB... at least, not with the same process. I've noted other oddities with drop caps, especially when passed through to Kindle.

(My first note would be that drop cap style is usually to omit any opening quote.)

But that aside, I'd look at the actual XHTML code to see if the drop-cap style (implemented as a <span>) properly brackets both characters. It may simply be that the export won't handle multiple characters properly (and multi-character drop caps are a bit of an oddity, to boot... I am not quite sure why ID allows multiple characters except "because").

You may have to create your multi drop caps manually — with a fully defined character style, not ID's feature.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

And, just to back up here — I didn't have time to experiment last night — drop caps work perfectly for me, as I am pretty sure they always have. It's odd that such a complex typographical structure should be so easy to achieve, when some others, much simpler, are a completel nightmare.

But I tried several variations, of one letter, two letters and quote mark plus letter... easy peasy when viewed in Thorium, Calibre and Kindle Previewer:

... so let's back up on your styles. Can you show a snip of your DC style setup? Are you using an assigned character style as well? What about further nested styles?

ETA: What are you doing with nested styles? They should not be necessary with a defined DC character style in use.

And what viewer are you using? Try it on one of the standard/vanilla ones noted above.