Insert rests as part of lyric input

Hi All,

I wasn’t able to find an answer to this via a forum search, but if the answer is already there, thanks in advance for linking to to the post.

When writing hymns that have multiple verses, it is common to sometimes have a particular note that the choir sings in Vs 1 but does not sing in Vs 2, etc. From a visual perspective, it would be helpful to insert a rest symbol within the lyrics input panel so that a choir isn’t confused by a blank spot in the music. Is there a way to do this? When using Sibelius, I would insert a rest as a symbol and drag it to the desired spot, but that led to frequent formatting issues.

See the attachment for an example. In beat 4 of the measure, the choir doesn’t sing on vs 1 and 2 but does sing it on vs 3. I was hoping to insert an eighth note rest right after “siblings” and “them” in vs 1 and 2, respectively.

Thank you for any insight you might have!

You can’t insert a rest directly as a lyric, but you can certainly insert a text item that looks like a rest. Use Shift+X to open the text popover, and set the character style to ‘Music text’, which will use the Bravura Text font, then copy and paste the rest symbol you need from this page. I would also advise disabling the ‘Avoid collisions’ property to make it easier to position the text without upsetting the staff spacing.

Oh, and welcome to the forum!