Centering hyphens?

Dorico
#1

I’m noticing that, in tight spacing, hyphens between lyrics are often not centered. Also, when I manually move the lyrics, the hyphens sometimes don’t move to compensate, requiring me to move them manually.

Product B centers hyphens by default. I can appreciate the added control, but it seems the vast majority of use cases would want the hyphen centered between syllables.

Is there a setting in Engraving Options–Lyrics–Hyphens that I’m missing? I’ve tried several iterations. It seems the best functionality would automatically center the hyphen until its spacing was manually overridden.

Might it be a problem with my settings? I have “minimum gap” set to 1 and “minimum space” set to 5/8.

#2

There is a setting for the amount of adjustment that the hyphen calculation can make. (The last option in the Hyphens section of Engraving Options > Lyrics.) Have you tried adjusting that?

#3

Dorico will always centre hyphens between lyrics automatically, so if you’re finding that not to be the case, please provide a minimal reproducible example so that we can take a look. (Minimal would be something like a bar or two with one vocal line.)

#4

The only problem I have (sometimes) with hyphens is that they’re (sometimes) colliding with the previous syllable, especially at the end of a system. I would love that this would not happen any more, as it is really a small thing (difficult to notice and correct until it’s too late…)

#5

We’re certainly aware of the issue with Dorico not making room for hyphens at the end of the system. It’s not completely straightforward to fix, but it’s on the list.

#6

Similarly, sometimes certain hyphens will collide with verse numbers at the beginning of a system. I’ve witnessed where 2 out of 4 lines of lyrics are placed correctly, and the other 2 nearly collide with the verse numbers.

#7

It’s a paltry example, but I grabbed the first one I saw upon returning to this project this evening. Third stanza, third line, the hyphen at trium - phant is too far to the left. When I attempt to move “phant” to the left, the hyphen also moves to the left, making ti even more off-center.

File attached. Don’t judge the engraving—it’s not done!
By Faith.zip (373 KB)

#8

I haven’t changed it, I believe. It’s set to 1/5. And it seems to apply to situations where more than one hyphen is created.

#9

In your project, Dan, the hyphen between “um” and “phant” is not centred because the “um” lyric has already got offsets for the ‘Line start x’ and ‘Line end x’ properties. Switch off those properties, and the hyphen will be correctly centred.

#10

Ah. The reason for this is because it’s a solution to keep lyrics from shifting note spacing.

Before I begin manual note spacing, I select all lyrics in Engrave and shift them one click to the left, which prevents further unwanted jumps in note spacing.

It’s much easier to deal with hyphen problems than note spacing jumps, so I’ll keep it as-is. Thanks.