Question: I have defined a command for a letter in the margin as follows (using marginnote because marginpar did not work at all):

```
\newcommand{\sideletter}[1]{\marginnote{\Huge\bf\sffamily\color{orange} #1}}

```

I appreciate that there are likely going to be issues with vertical alignment, due to the different fonts/sizes and when issuing the commands I have done the following to address the issue:

```
\sideletter{Q}[-1mm]

```

and

```
\sideletter{A}[1mm]

```

This seems to just about fix the issue vertically. However I cannot seem to align horizontally - the A is just *slightly* further to the right.

Example image:

![example](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5YtBa.png)

Does anyone have any idea about how to approach this? I have tried using hfill and centering but nothing seems to work.

Below is a minimum working example:

```
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{marginnote}
\newcommand{\sideletter}[1]{\marginnote{\Huge\bf\sffamily #1}}
\setlength\parindent{0pt}
\begin{document}
\reversemarginpar
\sideletter{Q}
\lipsum[6]

\sideletter{A}
\lipsum[6]
\end{document}

```

I think in this MWE ![MWE](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fcV6u.png) the misalignment is possibly less obvious, but it is still there. Perhaps the font choice does have *some* bearing on it, but not everything.

Answer: 
```
 \newcommand{\sideletter}[1]{\marginnote{\Huge\bf\sffamily\color{orange} #1}}

```

Here the letter will be the start of a paragraph in a fixed width parbox, so it will be flush *left* in that box and the distance between the letter and the main text will depend on the width and sidebearings of the letter. Also `\bf` is a deprecated LaTeX2.09 command, better to use `bfseries` and finally using `\color` at the start of a parbox can (usually will) cause mis-alignment vertically as it adds a *whatsit* node to the start of the vertical list which affects the vertical alignment calculations. Better to use `\textcolor{orange}{#1}` or`\noindent\color{orange}#1` so that the color change whatsit gores into the first line of the paragraph rather than before the first line.

As tou want the letter to be strongly bound to the start of the paragraph I wouldn't use a marginpar/parginnote here. Either a list label as suggetsed in the first answer, or simply a box, as below.

```
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{color}
\newcommand{\sideletter}[1]{%
\par\makebox(0,0)[r]{\Huge\bfseries\sffamily\textcolor{red}{#1}%
  \hspace{4pt}%
}\ignorespaces}
\setlength\parindent{0pt}
\begin{document}

\sideletter{Q}
\lipsum[6]

\sideletter{A}
\lipsum[6]
\end{document}

```
This one seems to work with marginpar:

```
\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage{xcolor,blindtext}
\newcommand*{\noPlace}{\hrule height0pt width 0pt}
\reversemarginpar
\newcommand{\QA}[2]{%
  \mbox{}\leavevmode\marginpar{\textcolor{orange}{%
    \noPlace\sffamily\Huge#1}}%
    {\noPlace#2}\par}
\setlength{\marginparwidth}{0.2in}%
\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}

\begin{document}
\QA{Q}{\blindtext}

\QA{A}{\blindtext}

\end{document}

```

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zJv74.png)