How to use a custom text style

• Jun 22, 2018 - 21:47

Hi
I have created a new custom text style. But how do I use it? It does not show on the "text" palette or when I right-click below a note. The users manual does not mention this at all.
What I want is at text-style, that behaves like lyrics, but uses another font (which contains special symbols) - so I can't just write normal lyrics and change the font afterwards.


Comments

Edit: I was able to write normal lyrics, then use the inspector to change the style. But 2 things annoys me:
- I had to change the style, vertical offset etc several times, before Musescore finally used the chosen style
- I have to write using normal letters, which is annoying, since my font uses symbols instead of letters.

So - guess I am doing something wrong?

In reply to by runekamel

You may be doing something wrong. You need to create a text and then define the custom text style that you want applied to all similar text as far a font, size, offset and so forth so it will display where and how you want it. You should not need to change anything in the inspector. Unfortunately there is currently no way to tell MuseScore you are about to enter a custom text.

At this point there are two options. One is to enter a dummy text, something that you know you will change, set the text style, then edit the text so you know what it will look like. The dummy text can be a single character. The other option is to enter the entire text, then apply the custom text style.

There is an option if you use the same text repeatedly. You can put the text with the custom style into a custom workspace. See https://musescore.org/en/handbook/palettes-and-workspaces#custom-palett… for information on how to do this.

In reply to by kuwitt

Thanks - that will do it. But feature request: I would like to be able to write directly in the new style, to see what I am writing. If I continue writing, and do the "select similar items" again, I have to switch between 2 styles to see the changes in the score.
To put it simple: Why does text styles not work in the same way as you would expect from a word processor?

In reply to by runekamel

This is a feature that has not been implemented. I hope that version 3.0 will allow for the shortcuts that will allow much more freedom in defining shortcuts. I haven't heard any discussion that would lead me to believe that applying to a shortcut to a style would be implemented. It make sense to me to be able to enter text in a style from a shortcut, but there are too many variables involved with adding text rather than changing the way it looks. I don't watch videos uploaded to this site, so I'm not sure what you do. What you can do is select several text items by ctrl+click each item after the first and apply the style to all of them at once using the inspector.

In reply to by runekamel

Sorry for not being clearer. The issue is that custom text can be based upon, Staff/System Text, Lyrics, Chord symbols, Figured bass... Each of these listed (and other still) are entered using different sets of rules. When you change a text style, MuseScore doesn't care how it was entered, it will apply the new style. The problem arises when you want to add text in the new style. Which input rules do you use? The process of adding the text, internally for the program, is the same if it is chosen from a shortcut or a menu. MuseScore already has many shortcuts, and the ability to add shortcuts should be greatly improved in version 3.

In reply to by mike320

Thanks for the clarification - I understand (or I think I do...). I can only say, that what I would like - and expect - is a behaviour similar to a word processor: The ability to define your own style, select and use it for new text, using all properties from the new style - where some properties might be inherited from other styles, some changed. But I've found a great workaround: I will redefine "fingering" or some other style, which I don't need at the same time. This will give me both "lyrics" and my own font for function analysis. And still, Musescore is an awesome piece of software considering it's free. I even prefer it to Sibelius sometimes...

Edit: Actually I would like to redefine the "figured bas"-style. But where is it? I can use it for new text, but not edit? Confused again...

In reply to by runekamel

Well, music and words are different in a number of ways that can sometimes make comparisons difficult. For example, in a word processor, if you wanted to change, say the "Heading 3" style, you'd actually change the "Heading 3" style - you wouldn't create a new style and then somehow try to convince the word processor to use your style instead of the "Heading 3" style when you create new level 3 headings. And that works fine in MsueScore - you can actually change the "Lyrics" style.

The problem comes in if you want some lyrics to have the regular lyrics style and others to use your custom one, and that same problem would exist in a word processor - the program would have no real way of guessing for any particular level 3 heading you create which style you want. You will normally have to change it after the fact.

That said, a word processor does often have a concept of a "next style" to apply when you hit Enter to complete one paragraph and begin another. If you're typing a heading, the "next style" is normally set to the default paragraph style, so when you hit Enter and continue typing, you don't get another heading - you get a normal paragraph. Most other styles are set to continue the same style.

The corresponding situation in MuseScore would be hitting "space" when typing lyrics, or chord symbols, or figured bass. I have also thought it would be nice to have the newly-created element use the same style as the one I was just editing. it's what I'd want probably at least 75% of the time, although I could imagine others working in a way where that wasn't true. Depends on your reason for using the custom style and also the order in which you do things.

So maybe an interesting solution would be to borrow from the word processor model and add a setting to each style to specify the "next style". So if you create a custom style for lyrics, you could set it so that hitting Space entered another of the same style, or reverted to standard.

Such a change would be pretty simple to implement.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thanks for your comment. Fact is that other software such as Sibelius does imitate the word processor concept. I have no problem defining and using my own text style in Sibelius. I don't want to have another lyrics style - but a new style with some of the same behaviour. I agree that it won't make sense to mix two lyric styles - and that is not what I intend to either. Word processors have paragraph styles and character styles - I think that is what you refer to, when you talk about what should happen when space/Enter is pressed. Character styles only apply to selected characters, whereas paragraph styles apply to the whole paragraph.

In reply to by runekamel

Can you explain more about what Sibelius does, then? Are you saying you create the new style, and then tell Sibelius you want to use that style for lyrics instead of the standard style, so new lyrics get the new style and the standard style just sort of sits around unused from then on? Still curious why you'd go to that much trouble when you could just customize the existing lyrics style.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Hi.
Forget all about the lyrics. I don't change the lyrics style. What I do is, that I make a new style, based on the lyrics style. I use this for function analysis, using a special font with the symbols, we use in Denmark. But it could be any type op text, that I use frequently, and which is not built-in. That is also why it is inconvenient to change the font after writing - it prevents me from seeing what I write, since the symbols are not identical to the keystroke).

In Sibelius I make a new style, and it appears in the text menu under "staff text". I select it for new text, and writes, using the desired symbols.

Why I don't just change the lyrics style? I could - but this would prevent me from writing lyrics AND the function analysis.

Naturally there is another solution: Musescore gets a built in style for function analysis, which I could customize. (The problem is, that we probably wouldn't agree on which symbols to use - but if you are interested, I would gladly let you use my font, which I have made myself).

In reply to by runekamel

This helps me understand a little, but I'm still a bit confused about how you go about creating a text element with this new custom style. That is, it is one thing to create a new text style; it is quite another to create a new element type. That is, if you want to add a function analysis text element, would you expect to add it as a lyric, a staff text, or some other type of text, or do you actually want an entirely new type of text element, with its own rules for layout etc? That's a pretty tall order. I'm guessing in Sibelius you are really just creating an ordinary staff text that has this new style automatically assigned, but internally it's really still a staff text.

In theory you could do this in MuseScore using a custom palette, but we don't apply text styles to custom palette entries because text styles are local to the score and palettes are global. The way all this works is changing for MuseScore 3, though, so it's not impossible this could become possible. And indeed, adding a new text type for analysis is something I'd very much like to see.

But - I am very interested in your font! I have used the "Sicilian Numerals" font for Roman numeral analysis, it does much of what I'd want but not exactly how I'd want it. I guess the same is likly to be true of your font but I'd love to see for myself!

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