Text, lyric and staff spacing

• Mar 18, 2012 - 04:51

Observe, please, the attached. The lyrics, despite my best efforts, are all scrunched up. On top of this, some ancillary text blocks (denoting verse numbers) can no longer be spaced to match the lyrics (which, as I've already noted, are too close together anyway). I can't find any controls that will space out the lyrics so they can be read easily. And on top of this, as you'll notice at the end, the lyrics run through the voltas. The file was extracted from a larger file that included an organ score; that file shows no such spacing issues. I've tried expanding the page fill threshold to 100%; I don't see where it's made any difference (even after File>Reload). Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong? Thank you one and all.

Attachment Size
Litany of the Saints 2012 - Choir.mscz 10.88 KB

Comments

Also, it appears to me that the lines in the staves are too close together as well. Is there some way the staves can be widened?

In reply to by km2002

The "space" setting in layout / page settings is extremely tiny. That's why the staves are so small, and it might be why the lyrics overlap. Normally, everything should be scaled according to that space setting, but for some reason, your lyrics are much larger than they should be for that tiny of a space setting. It looks to me like MuseScore has allocated enough vertical space for the tiny font that should be used with a space setting that small, but that ends up not being enough space for the font that is actually being used. Try entering somenew lyrics and you'll just how small they should be given your settings.

So the question is, how did the score get nto this state? Did you deliberately set the space to such a tiny value? Did you do something to increase the size of the lyrics?

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

As far as I know, Marc, most of these values were program generated, especially inasmuch as I have an immense amount of trouble (1) finding these controls and (2) knowing what they control (e.g., what is "accolade distance"? Never heard of it before this program). I'd like to increase the size of the lyrics; but that would throw things way out of whack for my primary concern, which is keeping the composition confirmed to the double-truck spread you see in the program. I had an old notation program (Music Time Deluxe; it's been the subject of at least one other thread of mine, in which you may have had a hand) where I could change staff spacings and other things just by grabbing a staff corner and pulling. MuseScore doesn't work in that manner, leaving me hunting for the proper button to push or handle to twist. Maybe I'll adjust that "space" setting and see what happens. I'll let you know.

In reply to by km2002

OK, Marc, I don't have a lot of room to run with that space setting if I'm going to keep it to two pages. But I'm impressed that there's a lot of wasted space that I both want and need to reclaim. Do I have any options?

In reply to by km2002

You can read Layout and formatting for an overview of the layout parameters.
There are a lot of weird things in your score. The scaling is too small. The page size is custom. The lyrics are messy. I did my best to put it in two pages and fixing the mess in the lyrics. The logical place of lyrics is important, it's better not to mix them by dragging them with the mouse.

Attachment Size
Litany of the Saints 2012 - Choir.mscz 10.62 KB

In reply to by km2002

Hopefully lasconics edits helped, and reading the handbookmpage that was linked should help even more.

But the "space" value in your score is definitely not what the program would have given you. If you create a new score from scratch, surely your staves are not that tiny? Something you did must have caused that happen. So it would help if you could describe how you went about creating that score.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

lasconic, thank you for your edits. I was able to take your file and put it back into the layout I needed (with the custom page size); and it's orders of magnitude more readable than my original. I'll have to check out that link before long. There's so much to this program where I'm totally clueless. Marc, I'll have to think about what's causing the issue with the space value. Again, thank you, both, for all your help.

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