Enter text not tied to staff or notes?

• Aug 20, 2020 - 15:56

Is there a way to enter text not tied to staff or notes? --- simply floating text that can be placed anywhere on the sheet?


Comments

But have a look at framed text, which could be either a vertical or a horizontal frame, for those texts that aren't linked to a certain staff/time position.

In reply to by bhs67

I think if you really consider how that might be expected to work, you'll see it doesn't make nearly as much sense as you might initially think. So, you've placed this text. Now, you change the page size and the location on the page is not longer physically there - what happens to that box? Or you make the page size bigger and now there are only 4 pages instead of 7 - what happens to the text you placed on page 6? Or you increase the staff size so the measures that were formerly on page 6 are now on page 8 - what happens to the text? Or you placed the text between two systems, and now you change the staff distances or margins and now that location is actually occupied by a staff - now what?

The point being, in virtually every single case one can think of, the text really and truly is associated with a specific note or measure and should move with it.

The only actual use case I can see for text that literally has no specific note or measure that it refers to is for a watermark. That would be possible to support someday indeed, but meanwhile I would expect there are any number of other utilities to add watermarks to PDF files.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I've been using Sibelius for more than 20 years. On the front page, I have put the date that arrangement was created, the date it was modified, copyright info, etc.

When I modified the arrangement, that info stayed on the front page of the sheet, near the top. That info is not tied to a note, etc.

In reply to by bhs67

Oh sure, for the initial header/footer, yes. We have that too, in Format / Style / Header, Footer - that much indeed is basic functionality you should expect and we do provide. I thought you were asking for arbitrary text to be placed in any old place on any old page. That's what I am saying doesn't really make logical sense.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Something new. 1) How do I change the font size for a header? 2) How do I type a copyright symbol? 3) Sometimes additional comments are needed throughout the sheet, on different pages - have not used often, but have found it handy to clarify.

I'm puzzled why there is any objection to allowing text to be placed anywhere without requiring it to be tied to a note, etc.? This provides maximum flexibility.

In reply to by bhs67

Header font style is defined in Format / Style / Text Styles. Copyright symbol currently requires you to use whatever facility your keyboard/OS provides, or copy:paste from elsewhere.

As for placing arbitrary text anywhere else, see my previous response. If you can come up with a real world use case, and explain how all the various scenarios I describe should be handled, we can talk further about how to design such a feature. I’m 99% certain that any examples you can come up with with turn out to be exactly what frames are for, no new facility required.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Yes, Format => Style => Text Styles works. Unfortunately, changing the font size also moves the vertical location of the Header Text.

This is a minor inconvenience. For future revisions, it would be nice if we had a free floating text that we could place anywhere.

In addition, we could right click (or double click) that text and change the font size, color, etc. (similar to Microsoft Word where we can change font characteristics, for specific words / phrases, that are different from the Microsoft Word styles).

Overall, I like MuseScore!!! Thanks to all who have contributed to the source code!!!

In reply to by bhs67

Position can shift for any text element when changing font size if the alignment is set to “top”. But there are also co trims over the position, and also the page margin size.

Ability to adding formatting directly would be nice indeed.

As for free floating text, I’d still encourage you to think this idea through more, and if you can come up with a specific use case that you think isn’t already completely handled by frames, and if you have ideas for how to deal with the issues I described previously, please follow up here so we can discuss this further!

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I found this thread because I was having this issue. I know this is an old thread, so if there's a way to do text that is floating now (I'm in MS4), I'd love to know. Here's my case: I'm working with a choral score and need to put a note at the bottom of the page to give some brief instructions about why some notes are cue-sized (because they are optional).

When I do it as a footer, it appears on all odd pages. That won't work (is there a way to have a footer on only one page?).

When I do it as a text frame or vertical frame, it's seriously causing me formatting issues because it is a forces a system break... I think. The frame won't always stay at the bottom of the page, depending on stuff that makes the following system move up to the previous page.

I just want the text at the bottom of the page, no matter how the rest of the music ends up getting formatted. Any help?

Attachment Size
V1 This Is My Beloved Son.mscz 42.3 KB

In reply to by bhs67

Then consider actually reading the linked page as well.
1. Use a vertical frame.
2. Add text to it.
3. Drag text to wherever you want.

Just keep in mind that this very often will turn out to not be what you want and the text will have some kind of positional or musical meaning. In which case using the proper text type will make sure that future versions will continue to handle that text according to its intention.

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