How to Copy/Paste Text from SMuFL

Hello,

what is the exact procedure to copy text objects from SMuFL Website and paste it into Dorico (Write Mode SHIFT-X)?
I don’t seem to be able to get it to work…

  1. I go to the website Browse the glyphs | SMuFL
  2. I look up the glyph I am trying to bring to Dorico

I have tried to copy a symbol (which can then be pasted into my text editor), but pasting into the SHIFT-X popover in Dorico Write Mode does not transfer anything.

I am on Mac, just in case there are different procedures.

I could even use „Ultra Character Map“, where I can directly access the Bravura fonts:


Make sure you choose Bravura font in the popover before pasting from Smulf. It does work.

1 Like

Thanks Marc, it works perfectly now :slight_smile:
how could I oversee this?..

I guess I just read some instructions from Daniel in an early thread about that, at the remote times of the first Dorico version ^^

I’m finding that pasting many of the SMuFL symbols into “Ctrl+X” text wreaks havoc with the vertical spacing. The SMuFL glyphs seem to pad tons of vertical spacing, which totally ruins Dorico’s staff formatting. Has anyone else had experience with this or found solutions?

If you use Bravura-text instead of Bravura it’s a bit better. If you’ve got many of these text items you might consider excluding them from the spacing engine in Engraving Options. This can cause other spacing problems / collisions with text objects to appear though.

In my experience, you can absolutely copy a glyph as text and paste it into the popover, even without selecting Bravura as a font first. It’ll be there, except you won’t see it, because the default text font will most certainly not have a glyph mapped to that codepoint. Just select all and switch the font.

This also happens with certain articulations, pedal lines, etc. Some can be adjusted in Engrave Mode. You may already be doing this, but add all of these before you begin the layout of the score. That way no formatting gets upset.

I would like to input Bravura glyph to my score. Please, tell me, what I am doing wrong:

– copy SMuFL kode from Steinberg webside, e.g. „U+E270” (accidentalQuarterToneFlatArrowUp)
– input shift-X in Dorico
– paste „U+E270”
– change to „music text” (font is changing to „Bravura text”)


The result is „U+E270”, instead of the accidental symbol. I tryed to change „Bravura text” to „Bravura”, but the result is the same.

You don’t copy the codepoint, but rather the glyph itself.

You can input the Unicode code, but actually it is way simpler to copy-paste the glyph. To input unicode on mac, I had to add the unicode keyboard in the system preferences, then choose it (cmd-space allows me to toggle between keyboards), and input the code while pressing alt. Daniel explained how to do that on a PC (I’m on mac)

Out of interest, Marc, what do you use for spotlight search if Cmd-Space changes keyboards?

Dear Leo,
I found that I never use spotlight search, too many problems with the different firewalls and things…

Thank you, Marc, for explanation. It works perfect.

Mark, I still don’t get this. How do I copy/paste the glyph itself?

You can simply click and drag across the glyph to select it, then copy it to the clipboard with Ctrl+C (Command-C on Mac), then when you want to paste it into a text item in Dorico. do Ctrl+V (Command-V on Mac), then select the glyph you’ve pasted and set the character style to ‘Music text’.

The music symbols on the SMuFL website are text characters, rendered in the Bravura font. You select, copy and paste it like any other text. When you paste it, it may not display properly if the current font is something like Times or Academico, but it will display the correct character when you change the font to Bravura Text.