A couple formatting questions

• Mar 9, 2013 - 21:29

Hi again. I found a couple other things I've been puzzling over:

1) I used Edit General Style->Page and set Lyrics Upper Margin to where I wanted it. But now I have a couple spots in the score where I'd like to move the lyrics up closer to the staff. If I select the text, right-click and choose Text Properties, there's a handy Offset section where it looks like I could set the vertical offset. But it never works. If I change the Y offset and click OK, nothing happens. And then if I select the text again and bring up the same dialog box, the Y offset value has always reverted back to what it was before I changed it. (In fact, for what it's worth, any values I change in this dialog always revert to their original values, except bold, italic and underline). Wondering if I am overlooking something.

2) Is there a way to change the distance between systems locally -- meaning, just move two specific systems closer together, without affecting the distance between all the other systems (as defined in Edit General Style->Page)?

Thanks again. Learning all the time ...

/John

Comments

• Mar 9, 2013 - 22:16

1) You could use a smaller offset and in places where you want more space, enterling lyrics start with Ctrl-L followed by a Return so you and up in the 2nd stanza, but without really having a 1st stanza,

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• Mar 9, 2013 - 21:59

2) As far I know, you cannot bring two systems nearer locally, BUT you may move them farer apart with a spacer (to be found in the "Breaks and Spacers" palette). Drag a spacer onto a measure and then edit it to be as long as needed, 'pushing' down the system below.

The rationale is that you usually want a score as tightly formatted as possible (less pages, less page turns, etc.); so generally the system distance is set to the minimum acceptable in normal conditions; when occasionally you want or need more room between two specific systems, the spacer can be used.

This might not serve ALL the occasions, but should cover the majority of cases.

M.

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• Mar 10, 2013 - 19:01

Makes sense.

Here's what happened in my particular case: My score consists of two staves per system. For the bulk of the score, the lyrics are the same for the parts on the upper staff and the parts on the lower staff. I attached the lyrics to the notes in the upper staff and positioned them so they are just about exactly mid-way between the upper and lower staves, and they serve as the lyrics for both.

Then came a section in the score where the parts in the upper staff have rests, and the parts in the lower staff sing. No choice here but to attach the lyrics to the lower staff, which caused the system directly below that to be spaced very far below.

A sample is attached. The whole score spaced very nicely when the lyrics were being shared by the upper and lower parts. But when I was forced to attach the lyrics to the bottom part (measure 39 in the attached example), it puts a very large amount of space between that system and the next (the one beginning with measure 40).

Not that huge a deal, but I just wondered if there was a way to fix it.

/John

Attachment Size
sample.pdf 49.41 KB

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• Mar 10, 2013 - 20:00

It looked good at first. But when I exited MuseScore and re-opened the score, most of the lyrics had disappeared from the measures where the trick was pulled.

And this still begs the question: Is the Y-offset property in the Text Properties dialog just not implemented, or is there a way to use it that I'm just not finding?

/John

Attachment Size
sample2.pdf 57.08 KB

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