Since I’ve found I need to do a lot repair to chord fonts and kerning, I set out to build a template with my preferred settings hoping that I wouldn’t need to do this repair for every project., just start from the template
BUT…
The file I made is in 12 keys with routine chords that I’m likely to use (I wouldn’t likely write E7b5#9/Bb or such goofy stuff) and painstakingly use Library/Chord Symbols to edit everything to what I want.
The file looks fine after a work session. But when I save and exit the program, when I come back to it later all the #, b.,mi are missing. Wassup with that? Might be font related because I’m still navigating that issue as a Finale 'fugee.
A secondary question then would be what fonts actually work properly with Dorico? I’ve tried all the legacy fonts from Finale and they sometimes work, but oft times they just don’t play fair and produce junk. There doesn’t seem to be a good native handwritten music font in Dorico.
I think we’d need to see the project itself to have any clues as to what might be going on with the fonts. In general, of course, you should find that a project appears exactly the same after you reopen it as it looked when you last worked on it. I can’t think of anything that would cause its appearance to change, and in particular for symbols within chord symbols to disappear of their own accord.
For accidentals in chord symbols, and things like the major seventh triangle, diminished/half-diminished circle, etc., you really need a SMuFL-compatible font that implements the Chord symbols and Standard accidentals for chord symbols ranges. You should also ideally use the “text” version of the font (e.g. for Bravura, you would use “Bravura Text” rather than “Bravura”), because these are the versions of the fonts that are designed for use together with regular text fonts.
Ok a couple of screen shots of my issue. This is an example of a lead sheet where I edited the chord extensions to my liking at the end stage after note and lyric input. Font is Finale Jazz Text, which I believe is SMuFL compliant. This file (and all others created this way) re-opens without issue.
But rather than re-invent the wheel for every project, I thought I would build a template with the font settings I prefer for the most routine chord symbols I would use so as to make the editing process less labour intensive. But in this shot all the accidentals and extensions are wiped out. The first system is in C, the second should be C#, the 3rd Db etc., etc. When I create the file everything looks hunk-dory, but after I save and exit and then re-open this is the result.
I’m more and more convinced that it’s related to font choices, but nothing I’ve tried seems to help, which is why I posed the 2nd question. I’d like to have a handwritten font for chord symbols, not Bravura Text (I find it rather ugly).
I can see the screenshot, but a screenshot is not a project. Please see this sticky thread for our advice on how best to ask for help here on the forum:
Set Font Styles / Chord Symbols Music Text Font to Finale Jazz (not Finale Jazz Text). I’m guessing Finale Jazz Text doesn’t have the SMuFL glyphs in the required locations.
Seems to be the fix, thank you. Not completely however. I got all the flats back (e.g. C7b5 displays correctly) but the sharps were turned into naturals (e.g. C7#9 has a natural sign instead of #). Weird, but I’ll dig back into this for a couple of days.
Nope. Tried re-entering the chords but anything common like C7#9 or #11 the # is replaced by a natural. I find this queer because if I enter a project, notes lyrics and so on, then enter chord symbols last stage, Finale Jazz text works just fine (though not without some other quirks not pertinent to this topic). Is there some reason that a file without notes or lyrics would cause this? Or my ongoing query on this forum, is there a handwritten style font that truly works with Dorico?
I can’t take a look right now, but I have a feeling you’ll get better results if you set Library > Engraving Options > Chord Symbols > Design > Scale factor for subscript and superscript components to something higher - try 70%.
The Finale fonts are lacking some of the appropriate glyphs at the smaller size.
Rather than use Engraving Options, you’ve created overrides for everything. This isn’t Finale, and that’s not how chord symbols work in Dorico. I don’t know the locations of the glyphs you chose when you built your overrides, but when I switch to Finale Jazz, I see this where whatever glyph you originally chose probably shares a location with the Finale Jazz natural.
Thank you very much. Maybe there’s light at the end of the tunnel here.
Ok the overrides I did were because the chord symbol characters were crashing together and basically on top of each other, so I moved some aspects to the right for spacing reasons. In the posted file it looks goofy because of needless space.
I actually would prefer the superscript version. I changed it to baseline because that got rid of some of my issues. But it appears all of my approaches have just made for different issues.
It may be that I must settle for Petaluma eventually since it’s native.
In the cold light of winter morning I’ll dive back into this.
The engraving option you illustrate is indeed what my settings are.
