Hi all, why not including iPad (and or tablets in general) screen specific sizes under Page Setup in the Layout Options?
This is my reference:
For example, to be used with my 12.9" 3rd-gen iPad Pro, I set width 195.58 and height 261.62mm (conversion from inches).
Or, at least, is it possible to save a custom size as a single ‘template’, without having to Save as Default? There are some situations in which I know the exact screen each musician will use, so I could personalise their (and mine) experience
I use letter dimensions for iPad scores. Scaling isn’t a “problem” per se, but letter is not the same proportion as as iPad. It’s slightly narrower IIRC.
One thing I notice is that I need different margins for iPad scores than the margins I use for printed material. I view PDFs on the iPad using ForScore, and if I use regular printing margins, the iPad margins are unnecessarily large. Whenever I need to make a score for both printing and iPad viewing, I make two layouts with different margins: my printing margins are about 15 mm. and those for the iPad are around 5 mm. The latter makes a slightly larger rastral size possible which is pleasant for reading on the iPad.
I seem to remember going though this with other software and found the Concert size available as an option which was the iPad proportions (from memory) but I remember also making a Custom size otherwise (4:3).
I reduce the margins to about 3mm because large ones are not necessarily needed.
Other (paper) sizes like A4 would resize to fit, which was not what I wanted.
It’s a while since I had to think about this, but hopefully this might be useful.
I am facing this Page Size question now: a score for concert performance where the players request the score in iPad format, as they will be reading on iPad Pro’s. Obviously the engraving goal is to fit as many bars and Systems as possible per page, to reduce page breaks and jumps in eye motion when reading, but without getting the score squashed together too much.
The professional ensemble specifies:
Your score should be a PDF that is formatted to fit an iPad Pro 12.9-inch display. This is particularly important for landscape scores.
Apple devices are measured by diagonal, so 12.9" is the diagonal not the WxH dimension. Looking up the specs on iPad reveals the body is 11.05" x 8.46". The screen is 4:3 ratio which implies that Letter is not a good fit.
Opinions on what is the best, nearest Page Size ? I guess, A4 Portrait? It seems these dimensions imply avoiding “Concert” Size (9"x12")…?
What is the best Resolution? The default, 150 dpi? Is there any benefit to increasing the dpi ?
I don’t have an iPad Pro, so can’t test various PDF results myself.
The previous comment suggests avoiding a size which would be rescaled to fit the screen. Rescaling can be a problem since the engraving would not look as crisp so it seems would be best to find the true Page Size to avoid problems there.
I actually have a doricolib file that not only adds a couple of iPad sizes, but also adds ARCH B, SRA 3, etc. Here 'tis, just download the zip file, unzip, and copy the doricolib file to your DefaultLibraryAdditions folder. Additional Page Sizes.zip (802 Bytes)
I think that’s right, although I don’t have one myself. The unit dimensions are basically Letter so that screen size looks ok. I believe the Dorico sizes are calculated at 72 PPI so 264ppi/72 is 3.6666. 2732px/3.6666=745px which is what I have for the height. If that’s wrong, feel free to hack the file to change or add whatever page sizes you want.
I know this post was 2½ years ago, but I just want to mention that you can scale whole documents at once in ForScore in the info panel. No need to ever suffer with too-large margins on all sides.
If the format is PDF, the dimensions do not matter so much as the ratio of height to width, since the PDF will scale to any size screen. If the ratio is correct, there will not be any padding. One can determine the ratio of h to w by measuring the screen itself with a ruler and calculating from there.
Exactly!
Once you have 4x3 ratio, everything is fine and will be scaled.
I use 9x12in for my print publications and they open just fine on any iPad. Sure, I could create a variant with smaller margins.
The score is now finished and I delivered it as A4 size PDF which has aspect ratio (edit: corrected) close to 4:3. The iPad Pro 12.9" also has aspect ratio 4:3. The ensemble has verified that the score looks fine. (It would not have been a good compromise to choose Letter, etc). Other iPads have and may continue to have different aspect ratios so it is device-specific.
As noted above, the iPad apps have the ability to crop white space from the edges of the page, so page borders are not a concern, as long as the content itself remains 4:3 to be sized-to-fit.
It would be useful for Dorico’s Page Size option window to show calculated aspect ratio of the page size. Choosing the right Paper Size is a frequent conundrum. Especially because changing Page Size tweaks the Page Templates, so choosing a Page Size needs a committed decision (not as simple as just choosing a different page size at printing-time).
A bit off topic, for my own use I recently switched to using Legal Paper (readily available and easy to print on most printers, 8.5"x14" in the U.S., i.e. same width, just longer), and the physical size and aspect works very nicely for sketching and composing, especiall y landscape. Also, Legal Paper in landscape orientation works great in Dorico’s 2-up page printing for getting more music on a sketch page.
Of course, once you are using scaling you lose the ability to exactly specify the staff size, fixed font sizes, etc, unless you are explicitly factoring that in. With the iPad doricolib file, the sizes are already set up to be specified correctly. Here’s a normal 9.5" x 12.5" printed part, and a version formatted for iPad. The size 2 staff size and other fonts are exactly same as I’ve correctly specified the iPad size.
I’m very pleased that this topic has come alive again after a while.
Thanks all for the insightful suggestions and thoughts.
There is still one aspect I am not sure about and that is…
We are talking about the ability to crop/scale documents to get rid of unwanted margins.
I am a Newzik user (was on forScore long time ago) and I use a lot of this cropping feature, but still it is constraining proportions of the document, so it is not necessarily getting rid of horizontal and vertical margins in the same way.
The result is great, and it’s giving a much better overall visibility to the performer. But still it’s not the optimal one. I know Letter is maybe a better format and closer to the iPad screen, but still…
Also, from a conductor/orchestra manager point of view, this operation relies on players performing it or needs to be done by a librarian. As an arranger I would like my deliverables to be the ‘final’ product to be utilised.
That’s why for some projects I go with a custom sized page, proportioned on iPad resolution (and some Pythagorean calculations).
For a 12.9" iPad Pro (3rd gen on…) my page size is 196.56mm (W) x 262.21mm (H) portrait.
Can some please tell me about the scaling feature in forScore (other apps other than Newzik) and the proportions?
Is having an absolute fixed size important, or, when is it important? I would guess that scaling itself in terms of resolution is no longer a problem, because Dorico is so beautiful in that regard to maintaining resolution at any scale (benefits of SVG?). As long as all the dimensions remain relative to each other (and there is no accidentally cropping of the edges), isn’t that the important aspect?
At the rate the devices keep changing, new sizes or aspect ratios with almost every device generation, it might be a bit problematic to have specific devices in the menu. Perhaps the Dorico manual can have a cross-reference page to show the best relationships between the various device screen sizes and paper sizes? The MOLA “Music Preparation Guidelines for Orchestral Music” do not yet specify iPads. But more orchestras are switching to ipad on-stage. So it probably will have to add a recommendation, in the future.
I guess I am thinking of minimizing the work effort and confusion on my side. I would prefer to have one PDF which is compatible with both paper and devices, rather than, many PDFs with specific sizes for various papers and various devices. I don’t remember now if the few big online sheet music publishers have a recommendation on this either.
Edit, to mention: The “reduce page breaks and jumps in eye motion” as my typical concern, is also less of a problem on iPad as mentioned in prior replies since those Apps have split-page view (whatever they call it) so that a page-flip shows a look-ahead and minimizes the jump. I still watched out to add System Breaks and Frame Breaks but I didn’t focus on these as much for the iPad score PDF compared to my print scores.
I would think having a legible output size, regardless of medium, is the important aspect. If I use a size 2 (7.4mm) staff on a 10x13 part, that will scale down to a 4.6mm staff (just smaller than size 7) if the same part is viewed on an 8th gen iPad. It will be something like a 5.7mm staff (between size 5 and 6) on a 12.9" iPad Pro. As MOLA says “anything smaller than 7.0 mm is unacceptable,” obviously 5.7mm is way too small.
Finding an acceptable staff size that works well with both printed output and tablets seems a bit tricky. Even size 2 on Letter (which is not typically a size used by orchestras) scales to around 6.8mm on the 12.9" iPad Pro, which MOLA says is “unacceptable.” As tablets are only going to increase in popularity, I’m curious if MOLA or other style guides will eventually amend their recommendations, and have tablet-specific guidelines.
