Alignment of Verse numbers
When you have lyrics with several verses, it is common practice to include verse numbers for them; however, it is a bit difficult to get those numbers to line themselves up vertically because, if you include them in the lyric box of the first word, the lyric box centers the text — so the number doesn't align with the number above it. I have been jiggering the numbers using the space bar, but the results were not satisfactory. But I just discovered, that if you create a text box on the first note and, supposing there are 5 verses, type in 1–5, with paragraph returns between each number, you can then drag this text box into position and it will line up perfectly with the verses. It really helps to make your score look professional if these numbers are aligned.
If the numbers don't line up perfectly with the verses, you might need to change the font size until the spacing comes out right. The font size should be the same as that of the lyrics.
THE PROBLEM (numbers are not aligned):
1. My God, how won - der - ful thou art…
2. How dread - ful are thine e - ter - nal…
3. O how I fear thee, liv - ing God…
HOW IT SHOULD LOOK (with numbers aligned)
1. My God, how won - der - ful thou art…
2. How dread - ful are thine e - ter - nal…
3. O how I fear thee, liv - ing God…
(I hope my example comes through. Browsers tend to "fix" bad alignment, so the first example may look better than I intend.)
Comments
You can 'fine-tune' the position of (lyrics) text, see http://musescore.org/en/handbook/edit-mode
However, I'd expect MuseScore to add these number automatically (if switched on), like LilyPond does.
In reply to You can 'fine-tune' the by Jojo-Schmitz
I appreciate the suggestion; however, it was in order to avoid the not-quite perfect alignment that resulted from the fine-tuning process that I worked out my solution. Especially if you use periods (full stops) after the numbers, you almost always find that they are not quite aligned no matter how much you fiddle around. The reason is because the algorhythm that controls font spacing doesn't really have one unit called "a space." The size of the space varies according to the letter, so "m" takes more space than "i". The result is that the length of the first word is not just a sum of the number of letter-spaces. Therefore, different words, even those with the same number of letters, are not necessarily the exact same length. You have a text box with centered text, so things actually can't line up.
The suggestion below to use an invisible grace note before the first note and to attach the numbers to that sounds pretty good. I am not sure, though, how that affects the play-back of the piece. It may be that you get a first note that kind of stutters. Not too important if you only want the printed score, but I llike to play these things back and I think I would find it annoying. I am going to try it out, though. Also, I wonder what happens if (God forbid) the verse numbers go above single digits?
In reply to Fine tuning doesn't do a good job by Jake Sterling
fine tuning the positions does work and is fine grained enough, Ctrl-Arrow moves 0.1sp, Alt-Arrow moves by 0.01 sp.
But I agree it to be cumbersome.
Insert a grace note in front of the first note.
Make the grace note invisible. Set its velocity to 0 if you also don't want to hear it on playback.
Enter lyrics starting with the verse number and press [SpaceBar] after entering the number.
In reply to The workaround by underquark
That's a good idea. I'll try it next time and see which I prefer.
In reply to The workaround by underquark
As I feared, using the grace note, while it does work well for the print version, creates problems with the playback. The first note goes "ta-dah!"
In reply to The workaround by underquark
I just realized that I had overlooked the part about setting the grace note's velocity to zero to avoid the playback problem. But I still think my solution is simpler.
In reply to The workaround by underquark
That's a nice one, guess I'll use this workaround next time, thanks for bringing it up
In reply to The workaround by underquark
When you enter lyrics you often find you need to alter the size of the page, spacing between staves etc. This is where you will find that the text box method fails as it doesn't resize correctly with the text of your lyrics. Using the grace note method you only need to set up the one little note and then - since the numbers are, themselves, lyrics - all resizes in unison.
In reply to The trouble with text boxes by underquark
Next version of MuseScore will have a special text element for lyrics number. The lyric number element will be attached to the lyric element. If you want a preview, [[nodetitle:download]] a nightly and check the Text palette.