paragraph style for First letter of first word to be in caps

[hendy_5450]

how can I get each ing / instructions  to have the first word in cap

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

"Drop Caps and Nested Styles" section.

[Willi Adelberger]

Create a character style to make caps. 
use it in connection either

• with drop caps or 
• wth nested styles or
• with GREP or 
• with find and replace/GREP or
• manually. 

[Peter Spier]

Did you want the whole word, or just the first letter? There's a conflict between the topic title and what you asked.

I'm quite sure you don't mean Drop Caps, but if you want the entire first word you would do that either with a nested style or by keying the text that way.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Drop Cap:

First Word:

[Peter Spier]

Hey folks...

@hendy_5450 is talking about an ingredients list here, not body copy. ;7)

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Does it matter? The process is the same. 

Create character style for All Caps.

EDIT: Create paragraph style with nested style for first CHARACTER in all caps.

[Peter Spier]

@Dave Creamer of IDEAS Not sure what you are asking about here. If you are asking about my question of first word vs first letter, it matters only in whether one is applying the style to the first letter or the first word and it's simply a matter of clarification.

That said, if its just the first letter there are a number of ways to handle this without the need for a nested style. First and formost would be to simply type the text with an initial capital. But another way is simply to select all the text and go to Type > Change Case > Sentence case and it's done.

If you were asking about my saying it's about an ingredients list, well I think talking about drop caps just muddies the waters. Yes, Nested Styles are assigned in the same dialog as drop caps, but none of you has pointed out that actual drop caps would be irrelevant to the list. Further, based on your example, I thought you might have missed that we weren't dealing with body copy here.

No intention on my part to dis anyone here. It's just that @hendy_5450 seems to be having a lot of trouble with what seems like pretty basic usage, and I think it would be best to try to keep things as simple and direct as possible.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I edited/corrected my reply. Technically, drop caps would work too with 1 line  and 1 character, but a nested style would make more sense. 

Aside: I wish Adobe still had the list of certified instructors so one could link to it and suggest training. I don't like to appear self-serving suggesting they contact me! 😁

[Barb Binder]

Hi @hendy_5450 :

It would be so helpful for you to come back and clarify a question when there are so many interpretations of what you are asking for.

My interpretation hasn't been addressed yet so here I go. I think you're asking how to change the first letter of each of the ingredients to uppercase without having to retype it yourself. If that's correct, you can do this with a GREP Find/Change.

I've posted a demo to see if that works for you and if it does, there's a screenshot that you can use to recreate this yourself.

This?

If yes:

And @hendy_5450 , you probably know by now that we are all volunteers just trying to help. We are not Adobe staff—we are experts in our fields, vetted by Adobe and have the time to share that knowlege. As I look over the six pages of conversations/questions you have had with us in 2025, I don't see that you have marked any as Correct. Maybe none were but more likely some of the answers provided by our volunteers did solve the problem for you. If you have time, it would be a welcomed courtesy to work through your questions to Like the ones that were helpful to you and mark the ones that were correct as Correct.

Also, @Dave Creamer of IDEAS is an awesome InDesign trainer and he knows long document layout like few others. Booking a few hours with him would head off most of your questions.

~Barb

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Or with Barb! 😊😍