Alignment of score elements

• Aug 4, 2009 - 21:09

It would be real nice to have an alignment function for score elements in MuseScore. For example, in mullti-part scores, it is often desirable to align crescendos, ottava lines, dynamics - vertically across all staves. You could select each object and have a menu item to "Align vertically" (with options to align lefts, center or rights)

Similarly, a method for horizontal alignment of elements on a single staff, for example dynamics markings, would be great.

It's mostly cosmetic of course, but it improves reading and makes the score look a lot more professional. Today it's a lot of fiddling with the mouse/keyboard to get it right.


Comments

Take a look at a score from a major publisher. You may be surprised to discover that the crescendos, dynamic markings, etc are not perfectly aligned. Instead they take into consideration a multitude of factors. If your goal is professional looking scores I would recommend against vertically aligning all the score elements. You may also be interested to know that Finale doesn't have a "vertical align" option. I don't know whether Sibelius does or not.

In reply to by David Bolton

Of course, surrounding score elements needs to be considered, and the priority must be on each staff having "correct" notation and layout. This would still be a useful feature, for those situations where several staves have identical rythms and phrases. This would also be a nice feature for creating worksheets, scale excercises and so on, where an aligned layout looks, well - just better.
Yes, Sibelius has this kind of feature ("Align in a row" and "Align in a column") for horizontal / vertical alignment.

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.