With all of the included music fonts in Dorico Pro 6, which of them, and besides Bravura, are fully SMuFL?
Iâm not sure what you mean by âfully SMuFLâ but there are a lot of details on the different SMuFL-compliant fonts here.
So, my main issue then is when I changed the music text font from Bravura to Leland, the space between the B or E and the flat symbol is really large. If I switch back to the Bravura font, the spacing between the B or E is perfect. Is there a reason for this?
You mean the music font donât you, not music text font?
Where did you get Leland from? From MuseScore or github? I donât know, but there may be differences. [Or is it built in to Dorico now?]
Not sure what you mean by âfully SMuFLâ. But SMuFL fonts are free to implement as many of the glyphs as they see fit, not necessarily all. As regards kerning and spacing, they should all be correct, though there will be differences, naturally.
Can you post a snippet showing the issue?
I ran a quick audit of the SMuFL fonts bundled with Dorico and Finale, and the results make me think that âfully SMuFLâ is probably the wrong way to frame it.
The fonts included in the audit are:
- Bravura
- Petaluma
- Finale Ash
- Finale Broadway
- Finale Jazz
- Finale Maestro
- Golden Age
- Leipzig
- Leland
- Sebastian
- Finale Engraver
- Finale Legacy
Bravura is by far the most complete overall, with 99.86% of the official recommended SMuFL repertoire. Finale Maestro and Finale Engraver are both at 81.92%, while Petaluma is only at 46.69%. But interestingly, all four of those fonts contain 100% of the smaller practical notation set used in the test.
So repertoire size alone doesnât really tell you how usable a font is in Dorico. Petaluma is a good example: less than half of the full recommended repertoire, but still complete for the 119-glyph practical core used here.
The report also looks at SMuFL metadata, spacing/advance-width information, OpenType layout data, and optional/private glyphs separately. That matters because optional glyph codepoints are font-specific, so comparing them directly against Bravura by raw codepoint can be misleading.
My takeaway is: SMuFL compliance, repertoire completeness, and practical Dorico compatibility are three different things.
Bravura is clearly the most complete overall, but Finale Maestro, Finale Engraver and Petaluma look much more complete in practical use than the raw repertoire percentages suggest.
I attached this PDF with the full comparison, including a glyph-by-glyph matrix for all 2,932 canonical recommended SMuFL glyphs.
Dorico_Finale_SMUFL_Font_Compatibility.pdf (577.2 KB)
One caveat: this is still a static font audit, so it doesnât prove that every glyph Dorico may request in every possible context is present.
Wowsa!
Jesper
The fact that you are mentioning B and E makes me think you are talking about the transposition in the staff label and not a flat in the music. If so, that element doesnât use any of the fonts in @NorFont.comâs table as that is glyph is set in Library / Character Styles / Music Text and typically uses the âTextâ version of the music font.
Iâm pretty sure Dorico is pulling that glyph from 266D, the standard Unicode location for a flat:
Leland Text doesnât have a glyph at that location so Dorico must be substituting it from some other text font.
A small clarification to my previous post after looking more closely at the discussion here.
The PDF deliberately included both the 10 SMuFL fonts bundled with Dorico and the two additional SMuFL fonts bundled with Finale, which is why Finale Engraver and Finale Legacy appeared in the audit.
For the original Dorico-specific question, the relevant bundled set is therefore:
- Bravura
- Petaluma
- Finale Ash
- Finale Broadway
- Finale Jazz
- Finale Maestro
- Golden Age
- Leipzig
- Leland
- Sebastian
I should also make one point clearer about the âpractical coreâ figures in the report. The 119-glyph set is a heuristic subset of common notation symbols, not an official list of glyphs required by Dorico. So when the report says that Bravura, Petaluma or Finale Maestro contain 100% of that set, that does not mean they are 100% compatible with every Dorico feature.
The report is strongest as a static repertoire and metadata audit:
- which recommended SMuFL glyphs each font contains;
- what SMuFL metadata is present;
- how advance-width information is supplied;
- and which optional/private glyphs are declared.
What it cannot prove on its own is whether Dorico may expect additional glyphs in specific contexts, including optional/private symbols or symbols requested through other font mechanisms.
So I would refine my original conclusion slightly:
SMuFL repertoire completeness is useful information, but it should not be treated as a direct measure of complete Dorico compatibility.
The glyph-by-glyph matrix in the PDF is still useful for comparing what the fonts actually contain, but a true Dorico-compatibility test would need to compare those fonts against the glyphs Dorico itself requests in real notation contexts.
Thanks to the replies here for helping clarify that distinction.
Thanks, @FredGUnn
Your U+266D point seems to explain an important part of the issue.
After a clean Dorico reinstall, I reran the audit. Bravura Text and Petaluma Text contain U+266D/U+266E/U+266F, while Leland Text contains none of them.
So Leland is not missing the normal SMuFL flat; rather, in a context where Dorico requests the Unicode accidental through Music Text, fallback may be required, which could affect spacing.
I have updated the report accordingly and attached the new version below. It supersedes the previous PDF.
Dorico_Bundled_Music_Font_Audit.pdf (520.2 KB)
Worth noting, that Doricoâs support for non-Bravura SMuFL fonts is not complete. Even if a SMuFL font includes all glyphs used by Dorico, switching to a different music font is not as easy as selecting Library/Music Font. It still requires manual changes in Font Styles, Character Styles, Music Symbols, Notehead Sets, etc.
Thanks for the information. So, what do I need to do then, since I do want to use Leland as my music font, in order to have the correct spacing for Bb/Eb for part layout names?
You can keep Leland as the main Music Font.
For the Bâ/Eâ in part layout names, the accidental appears to come through Doricoâs Music Text mechanism rather than directly from the main SMuFL music font. Since Leland Text does not contain U+266D/U+266E/U+266F, Dorico may fall back to another font, which can affect the spacing.
So the practical solution is to check Library > Character Styles > Music Text and use Bravura Text there.
If you want the accidental to match Leland visually as well, then Leland Text itself would need those Unicode accidental glyphs added with suitable metrics.
glyphs.xml contains only two glyphs from the Musical Symbols unicode block: accidentalFlatForTextU+266D and accidentalSharpForTextU+266F
Whatâs puzzling (because these are outside the SMuFL space) is 142 glyphs from the Basic Latin U+0000âU+007F, and 1 from Number Forms U+2150âU+218F, 9 from Latin-1 Supplement U+0080âU+00FF, and 2 from Currency Symbols U+20A0âU+20CF.
Iâm not in front of a computer to test but it âshouldâ be possible to change the location where Dorico is looking for these glyphs with a doricolib file.
If these can be mapped to csymAccidentalFlat U+ED60 and csymAccidentalSharp U+ED62, it should work well with Leland.
IMO, the accidentals used for chords work much better with instrument names, than the hardcoded U+266D and U+266F, which are just enlarged versions of the glyphs for standard accidentals.
Iâm surprised thereâs not an accidentalNaturalForText entry too.
I just tried and nope, it seems like these locations are hardwired in. Iâm now remembering that I actually tried this years ago, failed, so gave up and just created a new font with the glyphs I wanted in those locations.
I wish there was a dedicated forum section to discuss SMuFL implementation in Dorico. Preferably, including the Dorico team. Steinbergâs developer forum section doesnât seem to cover SMuFL.