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Drop caps with pure CSS

The ::first-letter CSS pseudo-element is used to style the first letter of the first line of a block-level element. This is often used to create a drop cap effect, where the first letter is larger than the rest of the text.

Most drop cap effects are only applied to the first paragraph, so you'll need to combine the previous selector with the :first-child pseudo-class to achieve this effect.

See the embedded CodePen

Then, you can style the first letter of the first paragraph using the ::first-letter pseudo-element. More often than not, you'll want to alter its font-size, font-weight, line-height, and color. Additionally, to make it look more like a drop cap, you can float it to the left and add some margin.

p:first-child::first-letter {
  color: #5f79ff;
  float: left;
  margin: 0 8px 0 4px;
  font-size: 3rem;
  font-weight: bold;
  line-height: 1;
}

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