Changing flat symbols in chords to the letter 'b'
I asked a question here about a month ago about how to get rid of the distance between the flat symbol and the other characters in my chord symbols when using different fonts, specifically about how I would go about editing the palatino linotype font to add a flat symbol (thanks again for the help!). Since then, I've realized it might be easier to just try to not use the flat symbol at all, since I don't mind the look of the plain lowercase 'b' anyway. How would I go about making Musescore leave my lowercase b's in chord symbol input as is instead of changing them to flat symbols? I already looked in the chord symbols section of the style settings, but couldn't find anything about flat symbols. Thanks in advance!
Comments
Chord symbols are transposable, and so they represent more than simple text. As part of that feature, b (and #) are parsed as accidentals.
If you have a special font that does not contain a true ♭ sign, and you will accept the simple 'b' text in its place, add the chord symbol as normal text and just be mindful that it won't honor any transposition and so will have to be changed manually in that case.
In reply to Because they represent more… by Jm6stringer
This is probably the simplest solution for me since I don't really mind having to transpose. Not sure why I haven't thought of this sooner, thanks so much!
You'd need to use a modified chords_std.xml
No, it's not designed to work that way, and really creating a custom XML file to make them appear as desired on your particular system only (won't generally work so well if you share your score with others) would be rather harder than just editing the font to add a flat sign (eg, by copying one from another font).
In reply to No, it's not designed to… by Marc Sabatella
Frankly, though, unless you're working for a publisher who absolutely requires use of that particular font, the far simpler solution is to not use it. It's a pretty ordinary serif font, doesn't look so much different from Edwin as to be worth any of this trouble. Also keep in mind, not everyone has Palatino, so your score will always render different on anyone else's computer but yours anyhow (and you'll have no control over what gets substituted). I'd personally recommend avoiding all fonts except those that come with MuseScore, because those are the only ones that you can rely on being present on all systems. But if you've grown accustomed to Palatino for other text, and have no intention of sharing your scores with anyone else (including not planning to post to musescore.com), at least consider sticking with Edwin (or Freeserif) for chord symbols specifically.