Grace notes and accidentals

Grace notes ‘tuck’ above an accidental on the principal note (see ‘Grace notes above accidentals.png’). But I find it odd that they will not tuck under an accidental, even though there is plenty of space to do so (see ‘Grace notes below accidentals.png’). In fact, grace notes seem distinctly standoffish about accidentals—unless they can tuck over, they keep further away from them than they do from unmodified notes.


Grace notes are further away when to the left of an accidental than when to the left of a note because of the margin for the accidental group that is defined on the Accidentals page of Engraving Options.

It is certainly deliberate that grace notes cannot tuck underneath accidentals, though I confess that, several years on from when we designed this part of the application, I can’t tell you with certainty why we made this decision. I will ask my colleagues to do some digging and come back to you in due course.

Thanks Daniel. In the meantime I can move them by modifying the note spacing, which I am pleased to find works a lot better than in Sibelius!