At some point in the future, I hope to see “smarter” word extensions when copying and pasting lyrics. When you copy lyrics from one part to another, the word extensions are also copied, which is exactly what you want if the other part has the same rhythm. If the rhythm is different, you often get an undesired result – a word extension where you don’t want one, or no word extension where there should be one.
Despite this quibble, I’m finding lyrics easier and more intuitive than Finale. Smarter copying/pasting would make it even easier to work with lyrics.
Tom, just to be exact, this has to do with the method you paste into the other system.
If you paste the whole line of lyrics in one go, Dorico will preserve the lyric extension lines.
If you paste syllable by syllable, Dorico will adapt the lyrics and will create new appropriate extension lines.
There is some interaction required with yourself though: you will have to type the hyphen key, when a syllable spans over more than one note in the new system, and you will have to type the space bar, when a last syllable covers more than one note in the new system.
You are opting for a solution, where Dorico pastes by itself, syllable by syllable, like in 2. How should the application know, where your new words should start, or where you are just extending a syllable over a few notes?
Here the usual procedure:
Press Ctrl/Cmd-V to paste the first word/syllable of the copied lyrics/text.
The lyrics popover automatically advances to the next note in the selected voice according to the source text. For example, for syllables followed by hyphens in the source, the popover advances as if you had pressed - (hyphen), which automatically shows hyphens after those syllables.
Optional: For words/syllables that you want to apply to two or more notes, you must advance the popover manually in one of the following ways:
After complete words or the final syllable in multi-syllabic words, press Space.
After syllables that are not the final syllable in multi-syllabic words, press - (hyphen).
After syllables that you do not want to be followed by an extension line or hyphen, press Right Arrow.
Continue pressing Ctrl/Cmd-V for each word/syllable you want to paste.
I wasn’t clear in my description of the issue. I was more thinking of clicking Option+Click (Mac). I created a short example (attached). In the first example, I’ve added lyrics to the Soprano line. In the second example, I used Option+Click to add the same lyrics to the Alto line, which results in extensions where there shouldn’t be any, and no extensions where they should appear. This is the behavior that I would like to see improved.
I understand your request, but your example is two voices (singers) going on a similar pattern, a completely parallel writing.
Usually in good writing for vocals there might be slight differences, offsets, voices starting a syllable earlier or later, syllables extending one, two, three or more notes, and so on. And only you as composer or arranger can tell the software, where you want them placed.
All I can say is that in Finale, whether you copy/paste or option/click lyrics, the word extensions automatically work, whether the the music is homophonic or polyphonic. You just click on wherever you want the lyric to start, whether it’s on the same beat or somewhere else, and Finale takes care of the extensions. I couldn’t tell you how the developers figured it out. The word extensions just work. In all other respects, I’m finding it easier to work with lyrics in Dorico, but it would be useful to have this type of behavior in Dorico as well.
I would also like to see this feature added. I understand that it would be complicated and there are some situations where it’s not possible for Dorico to determine the intended result. However in the example provided above Feature Request: Smarter Word Extensions When Copy/Pasting Lyrics - #3 by godfreyguitar it’s quite obvious what the intended result is to be, and it would be nice if Dorico could work that out.
I can only tell that most of the vocal repertoire I copy is not of this homophonic structure. A smart feature like suggested would not work - instead make a real mess. It is as if suggested, can we please have a feature to copy all accidentals from the violin to the viola part…