Equivalent point sizes?

Dorico
#1

I’m having difficultly figuring out how to make point sizes for different types of text equivalent and was wondering if anyone could explain when text is scaled and when it is not. Take the following example where everything is 14pt Bold staff-relative except for the top text which is 14pt bold in a text frame:

The Rehearsal Mark Font and Immediate Tempo Text Font are both set to 14pt bold staff-relative and are the same size. They are both larger than the other 3 examples though! As the top text is in a text frame, I am assuming the size of the staff would have no effect on it. The other two are just 14pt bold Shift-Alt-X and Shift-X text so I would assume they would be staff-relative and scale to the staff, correct? Or does typing in a point size override any automatic scaling that might done? If I wanted to create some System text that is the equivalent point size to my Tempo text, how do I go about doing that?

This of course leaves out score/parts discussion too. Do most of you just use 2 files at the very end of the project? One with the font sizes and default positioning set for the score, and another for parts? Just trying to get my typography workflow together, thanks!

#2

Text frames use absolute sizes, I believe.
If you’re using relative sizes then you need to calculate based on a staff size of 7.05556mm (which is a 20pt staff). If you’re using a 15pt staff size, all of your text fonts will come out at 0.75x whatever the font size is that you’ve set.

I probably could have explained that better but hopefully you get the point…

#3

Thanks, so the “reference” staff size for which all relative point sizes are calculated, isn’t even a standard size in the dropdown? It’s basically Size 3, but I could see the difference being magnified and causing a small error in font size. Anyway, I’m still a bit confused as to why the 14pt relative tempo text would be larger than the 14pt relative staff text in the above example though. If they are both staff-relative and the same point size, shouldn’t they be the same? I do want to have my Tempo and System text matching.

#4

It’s 20pt, which is a nice round number. I would expect the System Text and Tempo Text to be the same sizes, but I’m not in front of Dorico just now so can’t check what I get here. I’ll have a look in the morning.

#5

They aren’t, but I just realized that if I create a Paragraph Style for 14pt Bold staff-relative (which is what the Tempo text was set to in Font Styles), and then applied that paragraph style to the System text, Dorico resizes the text to 15.7pt and is now the same size as the Tempo in this Size 1 staff. I guess the key to get them to match (without using math LOL) is to NOT enter a point size for system text, rather use a paragraph style and let Dorico figure out the resulting point size to be equivalent to text set by a Font Style. Thanks for helping explain the reference staff.

#6

Yes, I think the font size in the text formatting panel is always the exact one and not subject to further scaling. If you could show that panel for tempo objects you would probably see different values than defined in the font styles dialog, too.

#7

I think you are right. A staff-relative Font Style will have the scaling done automatically and the user can’t override it (other than scaling in the Properties panel). I was entering System text, manually selecting 14pt Bold in the text formatting panel, and then wondering why it didn’t match the 14pt Bold Tempo text (which is set by a Font Style). I didn’t realize that what I was actually doing (I think) was modifying the “Default Text” Paragraph Style that automatically was selected when I went to create the System text. As you point out, this now made it exact and not subject to scaling. When I created a staff-relative 14pt Bold Paragraph Style and selected that instead of typing the values in myself, Dorico automatically scaled it just as it does for Font Styles. Then the sizes match.

I guess if having staff-relative text sizes matching is important between various text types, do NOT enter values into the text formatting panel for Staff or System text, and instead create and use Paragraph styles.

#8

It’s useful the other way around, too. I needed to add a couple of short footnotes the other day for which I didn’t want to introduce page overrides. The systems had slightly different staff sizes on different pages but I was able to match the font size exactly by setting it in the formatting panel.