Framed Number for Musical Theatre Scores

• Jul 3, 2018 - 14:20

ASIDE from using the "rehearsal mark" feature, is there any other way to include a framed number in the title of a Musescore document? See attached example. It is standard formatting for musical theatre scores. Thanks!

(The rehearsal mark you have to drag and arrange by hand, which makes it very hard to get consistent spacing across multiple documents.)

Attachment Size
Screen Shot 2018-07-03 at 9.16.36 AM.png 12.95 KB

Comments

"The rehearsal mark you have to drag and arrange by hand"
Not necessarily: if you want consistent positioning, you can set a very precise vertical and horizontal position in the Inspector.

Drag & drop is never normally needed for rehearsal marks or any other palette element. Normally, you just click the note or other element you want the symbol attached to, then double-click the palette icon. In the case of reharsal marks, you can also use the shortcut Ctrl+M.

However, in your case, it appears this isn't an actual rehearsal mark but a piece of text you want to display int he title frame. In which case, just add ordinary text (eg, right click within the frame, "Add") then after adding the text, right-click it, Text Properties, and set the Frame options however you like.

In reply to by WorstPies

Most devices that lack a physical right button have an equivalent gesture. It's not something MuseScore-specific but whatever it is would be the same for all programs on your system. For most Macs, Ctrl+click is the standard suggestion. For most Windows touchpads, two-finger tap does it.

Hi there, this thread is many a little old, but just what to replay how I am doing it for my scores:

Just to be clear: No, there is no way (I know) to use a rehearsal mark as the number in the upper right corner.

Workaround (MuseScore 3):
- Add a text to your title frame, I'm using the subtitle [Add -> Text -> Subtitle]
- Type in the number you want to have (e.g. "12B")
- Select the text and open the element inspector (F8)
- Under the section Text, set it to align right. This has the advantage, that you don't have to move the text your self to the right AND it does stay in the position if your text width changes (e.g. you rename it to "1", which is much shorter. This is especially handy when you create your own Textstile for this number). You might have to do a little alignment to fit exactly into the title frame. This offset might also be added to the custom Textstile.
- Again under the section Text: Set the frame to "Rectangle". You can now configure how big the frame should get (I'm using margin = 0.7sp and thickness 0.2sp)

AND HERE YOU GO

Troubleshooting:
There is one big disadvantage: Changing the Staff space (Format -> Page-Settings -> Staff space) e.g. in the conductor score, messes the whole thing up.
The frame now appears to be smaller. This is because the frame margin depends on the staff space and the text doesn't (and shouldn't be) You baby have to adjust the margin for the conductor score.
Same goes for the offset in the title frame. The frame decreases size following the staff size, so you might want to adjust that as well.

Hope I was able to help you or others having the same problem.

~ Rincewind

In reply to by Rincewind324

Thanks for posting this. To be clear, what you describe really isn't a "workaround", it's the right way to do this sort of thing. If you need it done regularly, then you can hit the "Set as style" buttons next to the relevant fields in the Inspector, then save the resulting score as a template (just Save As, to your Templates folder), or use Format ; Save Style to create a style file you can load into other scores.

Regarding the disadvantage: you can actually make the subtitle be sensitive to the staff space setting, just check the "Follow staff size" box. But if that's not what you want, and the frame is scaling even though the text isn't, that seems like a bug. For me, the margin scales but the thickness does not - is that what you are seeing as well? I can't think of a good reason for this, although perhaps someone else can.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I've been adding "book numbers" to my scores via the subtitle style options. Strangely, I do not find that using "Follow Staff Size" helps in keeping the scale consistent.
For my conductor scores, the Page Scale is 1.364, and for the parts it is 1.764. If I check Follow Staff Size, the book numbers are widely different. If I leave that option unchecked, the numbers are still different, but not as much.

By the way, for my personal liking, I set the border to a circle (Thickness 0.10, Margin 1.20); This reminds me of some of the old Broadway scores I've worked on before, and it stands out from other markings that sometimes clutter the top of a Broadway score.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I am constantly amazed at the little finishing details that MS can add to a score. Sometimes it takes a bit of work, or outside-the-box thinking, (or in this case, outside the circle) but the results are now nearly as good as virtually any engravers' scores I have in my possession.

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