Commercial Fonts and Dorico Compatibility

Dorico
#1

Hi all!

I’m really interested in using commercial fonts such as MTF-Arnold, etc, but this font (along with other commercial fonts) do not contain even some of the most basic articulation and other features of the most fully featured font “Bravura.”

Are there any plans to allow Dorico to put glyphs where they are missing from the program side for these less fully featured fonts? I don’t know how commercial music fonts operate, but I can’t imagine that it’s okay to combine an SIL license with a commercial license.

#2

I’m doing a project using MTF Haydn and have run into the same problem. No single note tremolo symbols for the strings. I used Dorico’s Music Symbol Editor to swap the nonexistant Haydn tremolos for the Bravura tremolos. Happy with the results.

For what it’s worth, a few months ago I sent a inquiry to MTF through their website asking about future upgrades to their fonts. Never received a reply.

#3

Yes, Dorico already has the ability to change any notation symbol to any glyph from any font that you own (a licence for), using the Music Symbol Editor, or other similar editors in the program.

This is no different from, say, using an open SIL font for some text on a page and Adobe Garamond elsewhere on the same page.

MTF-Cadence is the most fully-featured of the MTF fonts, with over 1600 glyphs. The rest are somewhat lacking.

I’m sure Abraham is hard at work on improving the offering, but fonts take time!

#4

Yes, I am aware of this, but the problem is I like to use a bunch of different fonts, and to do this for every project would be a pain.

I know that the MTF website can be slow. I hope that the website will get back to you.

#5

@benwiggy,

Yes, of course, I could go through every symbol and check it against the font and have it replaced in the Music Symbol Editor, but that is a lengthy task, when programs like LilyPond and MuseScore do the replacement for you.

I wonder if the Dorico team has considered this?

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#6

As far as I can tell, MuseScore only lets you choose from a limited set of fonts: their own, and Dorico’s bundled fonts. Leland has a similar number of glyphs to the MTF fonts: does it fill in with Bravura?

I’m sure that handling missing glyphs is on the list of things to do, but I wouldn’t wait for it.

In the meantime, you can save symbols changes as defaults, or use a template file.

#7

Yes, it fills in those gaps with Bravura.

#8

Nice idea! There will always be lots of SMUFL fonts, which do not have a complete set of characters. Would be a bit like a playing template, where you can define an auto playback option for all instruments, which are not in a library.

#9

In general at the moment Dorico has no control of what characters are substituted in the event that the requested character is not found in the chosen font, but I imagine that in the future we could bring some influence to bear on this process.

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#10

That’s heartening; thanks for taking the time to comment! I’m excited for the next version!