Dorico Elements 4.0.1 Disappearing verse numbers

I’m still quite new to Dorico - so eager to be put right :slight_smile:

Just updated from 4 to 4.0.1 and loaded a project. A single staff with 6 numbered verses of lyrics, but the verse numbers weren’t visible, though they’re shown as active in the properties panel at the bottom. Switching them off and on again did not work.

My workaround has been to export to xml and import to a new project, which then allowed me to turn them back on.

If this isn’t unique to me and my one small project then it could be a problem for anyone working on multiple or more complex songs so I thought I should report it.

Could you attach the original project in which verse numbers are set to appear so far as you can tell but they don’t actually appear? Thanks!

Ashington Stan - Prelude.dorico (1.0 MB)
Thank you Daniel - Here it is

Additionally - and I mention this only in case it has a bearing on this issue, I’m not asking for help with this bit. I discovered some odd things with the lyrics in some places when I exported and imported the xml file. Going back to the original file some words are visible, but only a blank appears if you right arrow through them (see bar 6 last note) - to fix them I backspaced at the blank and re-entered them. A few words disappeared - consistently in the same place for each verse. I fixed the original and re-exported/imported OK.

Since I’m so new I’m quite willing to believe I did something odd when I entered them - equally I can’t tell if it was something to do with the update. So possibly worth mentioning in case you come across it elsewhere.

Thank you for looking into it

Best regards
Jim

Thanks for attaching the project. It’s interesting! The problem, as far as I can see, relates to the fact that the verses whose lyrics start at the beginning of the first full bar rather than in the pick-up have lyrics of empty spaces, and that’s upsetting things – was that an intentional choice on your part?

Thank you Daniel,

Not really – part of the learning curve about verse numbering i.e. Some verses lyrics don’t start on the first note, and when you turn the verse number on it appears in front of the first word instead of the beginning of the music.

I found that if I typed a space I could get the number to appear. Subsequently I got some help on the forum (I gather it is not an issue for Pro users because they have a global verse number setting) – the answer was to enter a non-breaking space, but unfortunately you cannot select one of those with the pointer. In order to get the verse number in the right place I discovered I had to open Lyrics input and navigate to the right place, then turn the verse number on.

Perhaps just part of normal confusion learning what is a complex piece of software. I suspect the “space” issue was at least partly to blame for my other problems and I have now learnt to avoid them. It might be helpful to have a caution about spaces in lyrics in the manual (of course it might already be there and I’ve missed it).

I do appreciate your looking into it and I’m glad there isn’t a problem with the update – operator error as usual :blush:

Regards

Jim

Thanks for the additional context, Jim. I don’t think there’s a significant issue here that we need to investigate any further.

Thank you

As a footnote to the issue of spaces, the manual actually directs you to use a space to move to the next note (first on a list of ways) as below from page 345:

Advance the popover to the next note in one of the following ways:

If you entered a complete word, or the final syllable in a multi-syllabic word, press Space.

If you entered one syllable of a multi-syllabic word that is not the final syllable, press - (hyphen).

If you do not want the syllable to be followed by an extension line or hyphen, press Right Arrow.

So other users who enter spaces in lyrics may suffer problems too.

I don’t think so, Jim – the difference is that if you hit Space, you will just advance to the next note, but without inputting anything: in your project, you’d managed to create empty lyrics consisting of whitespace characters.

Now I’m stumped Daniel! (not a new phenomenum),

I don’t know how to add a whitespace character, just regular and non-breaking spaces. If they appear a few times, which I think you mean, then something else must be going on – could there be a key combination I’m unwittingly pressing?

I’m grateful for the time you’ve spent on this, and since I am past the original problem I understand if it may not be worth spending more time on it.

Regards

Jim

AFAIK Spaces are whitespace characters.

It will have been the non-breaking spaces.

In that case they are there purposely - it’s the only way I could find to enable me to turn on verse numbers at the beginning of a verse where the lyrics don’t start on the first note - which is quite common. Would you recommend a different approach?

In Dorico Elements, I’m afraid there’s no way to do it. In Dorico Pro, however, where you have access to the Engraving Options dialog, then when you enable them there, they will indeed appear aligned at the position of the first lyric by default.

If you have a particular ensemble that you write for and you will always want verse numbers, you could attach an empty template here and I could turn the engraving option on for you, then you could save that as a template for future use.

That’s kind thank you Daniel,

As these are contemporary and traditional folk songs there is a single vocal instrument plus the numbered verses - so no ensemble involved and I’m not quite sure what I need to send.

Here is a project with a single staff and Olympus vocal instrument - I tend to change the instrument to something appropriate to the song, perhaps a fiddle but I’m assuming your template would allow that - please correct me if I’m wrong, and if I’m sending you the wrong thing please let me know.