Forcing "7" to appear in chords / "9,13" vs "b9,b13"

Hello from Mexico City.

I’m a happy user of Dorico Pro 3.0.

For educational purposes, I need the chord symbols G7(9,13) and G7(b9,b13), but every time I type this in the chord popover it appears without the “7”.

Going to Engraving Rules/ Chord symbols/ Project default appearances leads to a funny/tiresome/ugly nightmare:

  • typing “G7(9,13)” Dorico interprets it as “G7add9add13” [not actually precise since having a 7th AND a 9th, this last note is not “added”, the way it IS with no 7th, but anyway], I switch “G” for “G7” and looks fine
  • typing “G7b9b13”, “G7(b9,b13)” or “G7addb9addb13” Dorico interprets as the same chord of above, this is, does NOT show the flats (why would Dorico ignore this?), so
  • I go back to fine tune the look for G7(b9,b13) adding the flats manually, which
  • got me into a tiresome process of trial and error since the fine tuning of the alterations does NOT reflect the actual result once in the chord, but finally I get to the look I want, anyway…
  • Dorico then applies the same flat alterations for the chord with NO alterations (?)

Dorico can feel quite judgamental sometimes.

Being english not my first language, I compiled a brief history of events with screenshots, attached as images.

How can I define the look for this two (different) chords?
The odd spacing glitches in “fine tuning” chords look, is already fixed in more recient versions?

(Please excuse me if this topic has already been discussed, I couldn’t find the topic)


Unfortunately, as you’ve discovered, the Edit Chord Symbol Component window is very buggy and takes a lot of trial and error to accomplish anything once you have multiple glyphs involved. I’m not sure why Dorico won’t show the flats, but my guess is that you have globally edited that composite character somehow. Once you enter the Edit Chord Symbol Component window you are making a global change to that suffix that will be reflected wherever it appears in your score. Changes made in the Edit Chord Symbol Appearance window are local.

“b13” is actually a composite character called comp.csac.smufl.glyph.alteration.prefix.flat.13. If you made a global adjustment to your “b13” and “b9” suffixes in the Edit Chord Symbol window, that could possibly explain why the flats aren’t showing. If you want to post a file, I’m sure someone could help diagnose the issue.

Here’s where to find that character if you want to rebuild the chord suffix:

Considering that chord-symbol conventions vary widely even within the U.S., a single country, I don’t think the lack of a given chord-symbol convention in a world-wide program like Dorico is “judgmental.” Of course the lack of certain symbols may be inconvenient if a user needs or wants to use a specific configuration.

Umm… this is what I get if I type G7add9add13 and G7addb9addb13, I don’t understand what the problem is?
Screenshot 2020-12-03 at 18.45.11.png
Screenshot 2020-12-03 at 18.45.01.png

@theoretical

The problem is it doesn’t appear in my file. But you’re right: in a new file it DOES appear.

I’m looking on which setting I modified so this happened. Thanks.

maybe with that petaluma font?