This is a Dorico-adjacent question: I’m creating some graphic slices that will be placed in footnotes showing Urtext:
I’ll be placing these as PDFs using InDesign. My question is, what are the best practices for formatting and layout for these sorts of annotations? How much white space should I leave around the exerpt when creating the slice? What sorts of sizes are best? I assume the staff size should remain consistent throughout the publication; those sorts of questions.
Thanks in advance.
I would crop these as close as possible and let your settings in InDesign handle the white space. It’s the only way to assure consistency across the document. As far as those settings, I’d just shoot for maximum readability and “comfort”. It’s a feel thing.
Thanks. Is there any sort of standard practice for things like staff size? I assume clef, meter, and key signature should always be displayed in every excerpt?
Here’s what I came up with; the footnote slice is reduced to 80%. Just want to make sure this looks like what’s expected in a scholarly work. Ok?
AH 46-47.pdf (62.6 KB)
Looks good to me. I might go with 75%. A decent metric: use an example with text items and size the slice so the text items are close to your actual footnote text size. Not sure if that will be better or worse, but it will impart some consistency.
Thanks. The text size is 10pts pretty much everywhere presently, including the footnotes and the lyrics. I liked the consistency from a design perspective.
If I may say so, for an Urtext edition, this kind of variant should preferably be included in the critical commentary at the end of the score rather than in a footnote.
Depends on the style guide you’re using, along with any house rules from the publisher.
I’m the publisher, so no problem there. And this is not my first publication, but it’s my first academic work.
Each score is one or two pages.
No worries.
I was just giving you my point of view, referring to the Bärenreiter Urtext editions I work on.
Critical commentary is essential when dealing with a manuscript, and various past editions must be scrutinised. And often, it runs to more than ten pages (depending on the length of the work in question).
Not wishing to complicate things, but is this a case where footnotes could be done as local flow chains? (not recommending, just asking)
Possibly. I really need to do the footnotes in InDesign though. It’s the right tool for the job.
Perhaps you could slightly thicken the staff/bar lines in the footnote examples, so they don’t look faint compared to the main body? Similar to how one might use a caption weight typeface, or small caps instead of scaling down point size, etc.
This is something I am involved with constantly. After doing footnotes and examples within both InDesign and Affinity Publisher, I am finding that doing it entirely within Dorico using graphic slices and the text tool is most convenient.
I also prefer footnotes to endnotes for urtext style editions, because endnotes are cumbersome to use and tend to be neglected. Anyone familiar with the old Bischoff edition of the WTC (which is think is still the best practical edition available) will understand the utility of footnotes, even when they are quite complex.
An idea : Would the Ambitus font allow these footnotes to be entered directly as text in Dorico, or would it be a chore?
Not familiar with the capabilities of Ambitus, but it could be a chore, or even impossible. The footnotes can lengthy and even more complicated than the main text.
Yeah for an incipit or excerpt, it needs to be regular Dorico.
