I lay out pages in Quark 7.1 (intermittently when working on community projects - I'm a photo-journalist) and the house style we use is 3 line drop cap at story intro.

When I set the drop cap it pushes the text downwards so I lose the bottom line in the column.

I correct this by reducing the dropped cap to say 90% or similar until the text is pulled back up. I worked out a different trick today but it's more complex - forcing lines to sit on baseline grid, and setting the baseline grid increment to match what is needed for the leading.

I could do with input for those familiar with the best short cut here.

Many thanks

Brian