Regardless of the settings I’ve tried, I’m unable to create chords with the appearance: Cm7(b5) and C7(b9) – (WITH the PARENTHESES, all characters Baseline aligned and full size). They always turn out appearing as Cm7b5 and C7b9. The thing is, I’ve been through all the settings I thought could affect this multiple times and I really thought I’ve covered everything that should affect this, but I’m obviously missing something and could use some help.
I’m attaching a document containing my current settings, including a listing of custom chord symbols with a Project Default Appearance (also saved to my defaults). I wouldn’t think these would affect the ability to use parentheses or not… However, Dorico won’t allow me to create these specific chords, even as custom chord symbols using parentheses, even though at least 1 other custom chord uses parentheses! (See note in attached PDF) If somehow, the chord substitutions I’ve created have overridden some setting that won’t allow other chords with parentheses to be created, any insight about what’s affecting this might help me to create a workaround.
I GREATLY appreciate any help or insight that can be provided!
For general info: Mac M3 Max, funning Sonoma 14.6.1, using Dorico 5.1.51.2153
My Dorico Settings.pdf (76.8 KB)
If I set Engraving Options > Chord Symbols this way:
I get this:
Is that the appearance you’re wanting?
With all your chord overrides, it would be helpful if you posted a sample project. It doesn’t need to be more than a bar long and doesn’t need to have any music. It would just be to see what sort of issues might be resulting from so many overrides.
I appreciate you clarifying this – that IS the appearance I need to create, but it also is exactly how that particular setting is set in my template; it’s just not the appearance I’m getting. I’m aware that some of Dorico’s settings are overridden by other settings– for instance, there are settings to control the appearance of a triangle in maj7 chords which exist even if you’ve chosen not to ever use a triangle to denote that quality of chord. So I wondered if I’m missing some other setting or if something else has interfered with the parentheses. (Also, I do have the setting checked everywhere possible to always use parentheses.)
Thank you, Fred… you’re right, and I appreciate your willingness to respond to this issue. I’ll attach a blank document here.
Template example.dorico (819.7 KB)
I don’t have your Palatino LT font installed, so obviously this won’t look correct, but your Engraving Options aren’t the issue. Somehow you’ve made a global edit to either the parentheses or something else that is now affecting their display. In the gif below, when I reset the Music Symbols setting to Factory (although setting it to my own settings works too), the parentheses reappear:
The bad news is, without being able to crack open your file and see everything that has been globally changed, I have no idea how to fix that, other than with the Library Manager.
A little bit of good news though: you probably don’t need any of your add2 overrides, as Dorico will do this style automatically by typing Gsus2 in the popover, rather than Gadd2.
I have no idea why Dorico doesn’t include an option for the standard 69 formatting as you have it. I think your formatting is really the most prevalent way of handling this (it’s not a fraction) and that’s how I do it myself. I gave up asking for this a while ago and just made a doricolib file to do it. So without having any manual overrides at all, I can get this by default:
Here’s the file and the code:
Chord Symbol - 69 Edit.zip (998 Bytes)
Chord Symbol - 69 Edit
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<kScoreLibrary>
<textDefinitions>
<entities array="true">
<TextPrimitiveEntityDefinition>
<name>6</name>
<entityID>text.csac.6</entityID>
<parentEntityID/>
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<fontStyle>font.chordsymbols</fontStyle>
<text>6</text>
</TextPrimitiveEntityDefinition>
<TextPrimitiveEntityDefinition>
<name>9</name>
<entityID>text.csac.9</entityID>
<parentEntityID/>
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<fontStyle>font.chordsymbols</fontStyle>
<text>9</text>
</TextPrimitiveEntityDefinition>
</entities>
</textDefinitions>
<compositeDefinitions>
<entities array="true">
<CompositeDefinition>
<name>6.slash.stacked.9</name>
<entityID>comp.csac.6.smufl.glyph.slash.stacked.9</entityID>
<parentEntityID/>
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<category>kChordSymbols</category>
<components array="true">
<component>
<componentId>text.csac.6</componentId>
<componentType>kText</componentType>
<xOffset>0</xOffset>
<yOffset>-3</yOffset>
<xScale>76.000000</xScale>
<yScale>76.000000</yScale>
<zOrder>0</zOrder>
<maxOpticalScale>100</maxOpticalScale>
<componentInstance>0</componentInstance>
<colour>kDefault</colour>
</component>
<component>
<componentId>text.csac.9</componentId>
<componentType>kText</componentType>
<xOffset>0</xOffset>
<yOffset>0</yOffset>
<xScale>76.000000</xScale>
<yScale>76.000000</yScale>
<zOrder>1</zOrder>
<maxOpticalScale>100</maxOpticalScale>
<componentInstance>0</componentInstance>
<colour>kDefault</colour>
</component>
</components>
<relativeAttachments array="true">
<relativeAttachment>
<xOffset>0.15</xOffset>
<yOffset>1</yOffset>
<componentRelativePair1>
<componentInstanceId>text.csac.6.0</componentInstanceId>
<componentAttachmentPoint>kBottomMid</componentAttachmentPoint>
</componentRelativePair1>
<componentRelativePair2>
<componentInstanceId>text.csac.9.0</componentInstanceId>
<componentAttachmentPoint>kTopMid</componentAttachmentPoint>
</componentRelativePair2>
</relativeAttachment>
</relativeAttachments>
<scalingRules array="true"/>
</CompositeDefinition>
</entities>
</compositeDefinitions>
<chordSymbolAppearanceCollectionDefinitions>
<entities array="true"/>
</chordSymbolAppearanceCollectionDefinitions>
<chordSymbolAppearanceComponentCollectionDefinitions>
<entities array="true">
<ChordSymbolAppearanceComponent>
<name>6.smufl.glyph.slash.stacked.9</name>
<entityID>csac.6.smufl.glyph.slash.stacked.9</entityID>
<parentEntityID/>
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<compositeId>comp.csac.6.smufl.glyph.slash.stacked.9</compositeId>
<role>kInterval</role>
<value>6.smufl.glyph.slash.stacked.9</value>
<interval>k6</interval>
<sixSlashNineAppearance>kStackedSixOverNine</sixSlashNineAppearance>
<alterationType>kAdd</alterationType>
<intervalDegreeAndAdjustment>
<degree>9</degree>
<adjustment>kUnaltered</adjustment>
</intervalDegreeAndAdjustment>
</ChordSymbolAppearanceComponent>
</entities>
</chordSymbolAppearanceComponentCollectionDefinitions>
</kScoreLibrary>
That’s obviously formatted for my default settings and fonts, so you almost certainly will need to make adjustments to the yOffset for the 6 as well as the scaling factors. If you unzip the file and add the doricolib file to your DefaultLibraryAdditions folder, then these settings will automatically apply to any file created from File / New. You can bring them into an existing file with the Library Manager. As it redefines this composite, just keep this setting in Engraving Options:
I’m actually using Academio for the Chord Symbols rather than Palatino. I thought that would be easier, since Dorico most commonly formats chord in that font. It’s true that when I revert to defaults my parentheses reappear, too, but I lose the custom chords set as defaults and I can’t find what is affecting that display.
Unfortunately, I can’t use the C2 substitution for Csus found in settings because there a difference in the guitar frames between Cadd2 and Csus. The publishers I provide services for interpret C2 as containing chord tones 1,2,3,5 and use C2(no3) to distinguish that from what Dorico interprets as 1,2,5. (I understand and respect others may not interpret these chords similarly; I’m just looking to please the folks I work for.)
Thank you also for your code on 69 chords - and I agree with you, I think it’s most prevalent to just use stacked numbers. I think it’s similar to what I’ve saved as a default. The sus42 chords were trickier to create and I wished that checking the box in settings to handle stacked chords similarly to 69 chords would help with that, but I had to work from scratch on that.
Once again, I GREATLY appreciate you looking into this… I just hope I can find a workable fix!
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I know the developers have more powerful tools that can peek in and see where the override is. Perhaps one of them will see this thread and take a look.
Gotcha. I’ve never cared about guitar frames at all so that’s a non-issue for me, but I understand it is for you.
You’re welcome! Doricolib files are really powerful ways to change some basic chord component settings. (And all sorts of stuff with the program.) They are just unsupported and undocumented so it’s tough to know exactly what is and isn’t possible with them. I’d really love to see a lot more options for adding custom chords too, but for the time being I just try to see what I can hack in myself.
For anyone who might find this thread helpful, I just wanted to add that I have found a solution, which does make some sense but at first I found counter-intuitive. When creating a custom symbol and trying to put parentheses around an alteration (like a b9 or a b5) it is necessary, when creating a Project Default Chord Symbol Appearance and you double-click on the b9 to edit it (in the Edit Chord Symbol Component screen) you need to NOT retype the full component in the order of appearance: (b9) but rather, leave the original component in place, then add the 2 parentheses elements, thus: b9( ) and then manually re-position each element. Positioning is definitely tricky; each element moves according to it’s positional relationship to the element before it– but you can get results with tweaking and making note of the numerical horizontal and vertical positions of each element.
For any forum admins. I think we can mark this thread as ‘solved’ and many thanks.
