First time trying score with lyrics. I can see that adding a dynamic marking on a staff with lyrics defaults to putting the dynamic above instead of below. Can this be changed?
Individually, yes. Select the dynamic, Ctrl+8 to open the engraving panel, select “Below.” AFAIK, there’s no way to change this globally. Nothing in Engraving Options–Lyrics, at least.
As you probably know, this is a standard convention. Hence the default setting when lyrics are present.
This is as easy as not working with a singer instrument. They are the only ones that exhibit that behavior. Take a flute or an oboe, you’ll notice that the dynamics default will be below, and you’ll be able to add lyrics exactly the same way. But barlines will join and dynamics might get in the way of lyrics…
Seconded. However, if there’s a particular extreme circumstance why you might want to change the convention, then you could select all the dynamics (using the Edit Filter) and then flip them all at once.