I understand that it’s not possible, but is there any clever way to create Chord Charts in Dorico like the image I’m attaching? I assume it would be necessary to work with text frames and music frames, but I’m not sure if there’s any truly feasible option.
Hi, could you please give us more information? as you would be using Dorico outside its purpose and built-in layout possibilities. This means, as you indicated, a number of workarounds, which might be time consuming.
As you know there are various Chord Pro programs out there which work well for what your screenshot shows and they can include guitar diagrams etc. if needed.
What are you wanting to do differently, or what else do you want to add, what do you mean by “complex chord-charts”? Do you just mean chords like Eb7#11b13 or are you wanting to add rhythm notation or barlines?
If you have a pencil sketch of what you are planning, then we can help you further without guessing.
What happens is that I have a book in lead sheet format in Dorico, and I would like to convert it “automatically” into a Chord Chart. What I would mainly like is to keep the chord style, the guitar chord diagrams, the fonts… That’s why I was asking if there is any way to use Dorico for this.
I’m testing some options, but I see that, obviously, it is more complex than other programs dedicated to this format.
I have not used the zero line staff. Presumably the notes, rhythms hopefully still stay in place because these space out your lyrics and chord symbols. What happens if you use it then?
Hopefully someone else will be able to think of some way to do this.
Are you able to upload a cut down version of a couple of pages as a Dorico file so we can see what you have already?
Add a 0-line staff (I posted one that works with D5 here)
Copy the notes and lyrics to it (as lyrics are attached to notes)
Hide the noteheads, stems, and accidentals. You can do this in Properties panel in Engrave. You can’t hide ties so select all the notes and cut the ties with U
Remove Rests
In Setup, set the chord symbols to display on the 0-line staff, then use Select More and move them into position in Engrave.
Engraving Options / Barlines set Minimum barline protrusion to something larger than the default to get the look you want.
Hide the time sig on the 0-line staff if you really don’t want it. You may need to input an independent time sig if you want to keep it on your main lead sheet.
