lyrics text and hyphen (dash) formatting
Could someone please explain in more detail these lyrics formatting options (found in Format - Style - Lyrics) and how they are interconnected?
1. Min. distance (def.: "Minimum distance between lyrics syllables.”)
2. Min. hyphen/dash length (def.: “Minimum length of inter-syllable dashes.")
3. Hyphen pad (no given description in the handbook)
Some of my challenges :
1. Min. distance seems to not only affect the distance between syllables, but also between different words. What if I want the min. distance between syllables be 0, but I want a decent space between different words ? I would like that if there’s enough space, the word “comme” is written normally, and, if there’s not enough space, it’s “com - me”. I can’t get the first version, the 2 m are either collated together, or, if I increase the min distance, it’s already split in two with the dash.
2. What exactly does the Hyphen pad do? I guessed that it is a possibility to vary the space before and after the hyphen/dash, but it does not seem to be true.
3. Max dash distance is explained as "Maximum distance allowed between dashes. Reducing this value allows more dashes to form between syllables where possible—and vice versa.” But as i decrease the distance, the dashes actually become longer!
Could someone please help me understand the details of these lyrics text formatting options ?
Thanks a lot !
Comments
Min distance applies to any two consecutive syllables wther in the same word or not. There is currenty no way to force additional space between words. You could embed a space in the last syllable of a word that is too close, I guess (Ctrl+Space). Or add leading space to the next note.
Dash pad adds space before the hyphen. Works as expected for me. Note it doens't actually add more space between the syllables, it's possible to push the hyphen into the next syllable if you move it far enough. Melisma pad does the same for melisma extenders (underscores). I guess it's expected you won't increase these more than min distance allows.
Max dash distance applies to situations where the syllables are very far apart - a long mid-word melisma - so far that multiple dashes are used. It controls how much space is between two successive hyphens in that case. So decreasing this means more hyphens, more closely spaced. The actual length of the hyphen is directly not connected to this.
In reply to Min distance applies to any… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for such a rapid and good answer! It seems a little bit more clear to me now.
Thanks, I understand the "Max dash distance", but I still don't get how min and max dash length works. I thought it would influence the length of the dash, but it does not seem to be the case if I only change min and max length. Any ideas on that ?
My other observations as I was just once again "experimenting" with the options :
I saw that increasing min distance actually does influence the distance also between two words (even if the last and first letters are vowels).
Dash pad seems to work in a way that as it makes the space bigger, it makes the dash smaller until it dissapears (and puts the syllables together in a word)
In reply to Thanks for such a rapid and… by s.a-g
Yes, to confirm again, min distance affects all syllables, whether part of the same word or not. And certainly vowel vs consonant has nothing to do with it, either.
Max dash length is what it says, the maximum dash length. It doesn't force extra space between notes, but if there is extra space between notes already, it will allow the hyphen to grow. Simialrly, dash pad doens't add extra space, it just moves the dash. It's up to you to make these parameters consistent with each other - don't set a larger dash pad than your min dash length and min distance will support.
In reply to Yes, to confirm again, min… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks again, now it's all clear for the dash length!
And of course, I get it now about the min distance - it was a tired misreading (as English is not my native language), I mixed up syllables & consonants in my mind.
Thanks again for the great support!
And thanks to all the team that worked on the development of MuseScore 3. I love all the new options, it's just takes a moment to discover them all.