There was a discussion the other day about writing time signatures into standard text, and I decided to try my hand at creating a font to do that.
This font uses Bravura glyphs and scales them appropriately to use with text, including ligatures. The idea is to be able to type directly and intuitively for the needed musical glyphs without needing to adjust baselines and font size.
The time signatures are created using ligatures.
Please give feedback on how it works for you (especially on Mac), and what ideas you have for expanding it. I’m very new to Font Forge so it’s likely there are a lot of mistakes. Let me know if the size and kerning looks ok.
Also, I’m using Bravura glyphs, so I want to make sure to give proper credit for that.
14 Likes
I am not a font expert, but this looks beautiful, and it is amazingly convenient. Works like a charm on Mac. Thanks so much Dan!
1 Like
Would it be worth it to include flat, sharp and natural here as well? That way you wouldn’t need to copy-paste glyphs from SMuFL. I may be wrong, but I don’t know of a way to easily include these glyphs in shift-X text.
Definitely, I’ll add those.
3 Likes
Super ! Time signatures, clefs and flat, natural and sharp would be very nice to have in shift X text. Thank you 
1 Like
Cool Dan!
You could expand more :
sub eight eight by eight_eight
sub four five by four_five
and so on… 
Nice font indeed and good job.
Why not add key signatures too! (treble, alto and bass clefs) a bit more hard work here, if you want I can help
Updated version is posted.
I added the following:
L = lines (5-line staff)
T = treble clef
B =bass clef
A = alto clef
b = flat
n = natural
I tried to add # for the sharp glyph, but it’s not working and I’m not sure why.
I scaled the clefs down to 63%, let me know how the relative sizes look. The goal is to get everything sized correctly so there’s no need to adjust font size after the fact for individual characters.
Obviously intuitive character mapping is pretty limited and I’m not sure I want to go too far with this… just looking for the standard stuff. Although if there’s something conspicuously missing, I guess it’s not much help to someone who needs it.
4 Likes
it’s working on my MacBook Pro.
Ok, yep the # works for me too. For some reason it wasn’t working in the Metrics (preview) window in Font Forge.
Can you kern the clefs and times signatures with L the staff?
I’m sure it can be done, but that’s a lot of work. Maybe someone else could chip in for that? I can see the value of typing these directly onto the staff…
Thanks, it’s released under OFL, so you can do whatever you want to it!
I wonder if it would be better to make a separate font for key signatures? To keep the mappings intuitive.
1 Like
Ok, one more update. I added time signatures for (1-8)/4 and (1-12)/8. Maybe someone else could jump in and add n/16.
I’m done working on this for now, but anyone can feel free to add to it.
Dorico Glyphs.zip (9.4 KB)
5 Likes
Thanks, Dan!!
Much appreciated on all the hard work and goodies.
HAve a great day!
1 Like
I promise I won’t keep droning on, but just a quick update.
I’ve added time signatures for 2/2, 3/2, and 4/2, and (1–12)/4, /8, and /16.
You can also type “r” repeatedly to choose which type of rest you want to display, and add a dot.
I’ve also improved the spacing for the plus sign and equals sign so the spacing is even,
And you can beam eighth notes by typing ee, eee, eeee, or ss, sss, ssss.
Here’s an example typed directly in, with no added spaces:
6 Likes
Brilliant, Dan, thanks! This can be be very useful. You wouldn’t mind doing the same for MTF-Cadence, November, Sebastian and Petaluma, would you?
Fantastic stuff, Dan!
But: Couldn’t this be merged with Metrico somehow? 
That’s fine with me. The point of this was primarily to write time signatures as text and have them display correctly. The point of Metrico was primarily to write tempo equations and such.
I don’t know if fonts can be combined easily like that, since MusGlyphs has a lot of OpenType info for kerning and ligatures. I’d be fine with combining them, but I tend to prefer fonts that focus on one thing, rather than a huge font that does lots of things.
1 Like
