I previously used Finale and found it very useful to be able to fix exactly the position of lyrics between two staves. I can’t find such a possibility in Dorico 5. Doesn’t this exist? Or at least an option to always center lyrics between two staves?
Many thanks for your help!
Welcome to the forum.
No, there is not a way to precisely center lyrics between a grand staff. However, you set distance from the upper staff globally, and it’s easy to make micro-adjustments to baselines. Also, when you move one baseline, all lyrics in that system and line will move.
Many thanks for this very quick answer!
I’m excited to get to know Dorico!
I will definitely have to get used to this.
Is there a specific reason why it is not possible to globally define a fixed position for lyrics, in order to have them always in the same position within staves?
Because the devs haven’t added it yet, I guess, would be the unhelpful but accurate answer.
I work almost exclusively with vocal music, particularly hymnals. I’d like a setting for this as well, but I’ve gotten so used to the very quick ways to adjust baselines that I haven’t thought about it in ages.
I suppose you could set distance between staves in Layout Options>Vertical Spacing and Engraving Options>Lyrics>Vertical positioning in such a way that they were almost exactly centered. I usually need to make small modifications anyways, depending on musical “protrusions” into the center.
Thanks again for the immediate reaction!
Probably because it’s a specific case: you only want that in choir reductions where all parts are singing the same lyrics at the same time. When each voice/part has its own staff, then you want lyrics closer to the notes for ease of reading.
Dorico’s collision avoidance is an advantage that takes getting used to. When you set your “ideal” staff spacing and lyric distance both as small as you would allow, Dorico makes room for everything automatically, and it looks good with no fuss.
Yes, it might be a question of getting used to it and I will do my best with the current options.
Still, as I prepare song-sheets and songbooks and I want to have a clean and unified layout for all the songs, it would be highly appreciated to be able not only to fix a minimum vertical spacing between staves, but also a maximum spacing, or simply a fixed vertical spacing, as it is possible in Finale.
If I’m not the only one looking for this, it would be interesting to consider this option for a new update.
You do know you can quickly and easily make manual adjustments, right? Just making sure. It’s literally seconds per page to nudge.
Yes, I know that.
You are right, with the staff spacing tool I can easily adjust it.
Is there also a way to know the exact vertical positions of the lyrics? I understand that I can move the whole line up and down, but how to know if it corresponds exactly to the position in other systems?
Just grab one of the lyrics in the line using the graphic edit tool and move it up and down! The whole line will move.
There’s no way to match it to the vertical positioning of other systems, but lyric adjustment doesn’t really work that way… Each system has slightly different requirements depending on protruding elements downward from the cleft.
It is not quick enough for me. I would like to be able to set my vertical offset. Dorico’s automatic spacing options are useless in my case. Users should be able to set globally exactly what they want. Dorico should help them doing that instead of making their lives difficult.
It is not about the lyrics only. The whole page layout needs to be easily customisable as per the user’s needs, not as per Dorico’s algorithms. What I want from this software is to set up my desired staves per page and spread them equally, it is that simple.
Welcome to the forum. Sorry, I think some manual adjustment is essential for detail work. Yes, there are a few global settings I would like to see added, but it’s far from difficult. I think sometimes users want literally everything automated, with no work required.
If you can show where you’re feeling a time drain, we may be able to suggest a better way.
Dorico’s algorithms are entirely based on the global parameters that you set in Layout, Notation and Engraving Options.
If you want to have staves equally spread (rather than adjusting depending on the content, which is more usual), then you can set the Ideal Gaps in Layout Options to large enough values.
If you set them to e.g. 10 spaces, but that’s not actually enough to accommodate everything, then you’ll need to increase the distance.
There is a setting to turn off collision avoidance between staves and systems if you want, but I doubt that will leave with you less work to do.
Thank you for your quick replies. I come from Finale and of course I do not expect the same functionality etc from Dorico. My files are not complicated at all. They consist of a single voice only and lyrics below the system. The pieces (flows in Dorico) are pretty short - 1-3 pages and need to be combined into larger files where the next flow starts on the same page. I recently finished a 1800 pages work using Finale and it was very simple to set up my layout using their tools - 8 systems per page 185x250 mm with 20 mm margins..
I tried to replicate this layout in Dorico playing with a bunch of settings - inter system gap, minimum system gap with content, music frame margins, flow heading margins, lyrics vertical position, etc. and I can’t get a consistent result. The relative position of the lyrics makes the gaps between the systems not equal. Very often the last system lyrics go. below the frame margin into the footer of the page. My systems are exactly the same size as in Finale, all my fonts are exactly the same size and yet I have to do dozens of manual adjustments to fit the music into the page. Very annoying.
Also the combining of the files (flows) functionality is complicated, I can’t achieve consistent results with it. As I said sometimes I need flow title, sometimes I don’t, so every time I need to adjust manually the spacing according to that… It was such a blessing with Finale Score merger…
I understand the reasoning behind Dorico’s countless algorithmic auto settings however it is frustrating to fight with them all the time in order to get my desired layout.
I think what you are asking for is easily achieved, or at least most of it. Turning of Avoid collisions is probably they way to go. Please post a short example file if you can, or an image clearly showing what you want.
Thanks, I’ve been playing around and made some progress by:
The other problem with inserting the flows into a big file is still outstanding… Sometimes I have flow headings, and sometimes I don’t. What is the best strategy to deal with that? Should I create another flow heading template in the big file without flow heading header and without top margin and apply it on the pages where I import the flows without headings?
If we could see a sample page or two illustrating what works for you and what does not, we would be able to make more helpful comments.
Without seeing some examples of your problem it is very difficult to comment.
