I have never had issues with lyrics, but now two words are colliding (and in similar places in all the piece)!
In the layout options the Note Spacing is set at 4 and I checked Make Space for Lyrics (but maybe this is for other spaces).
I know I can adjust manually the vertical spacing in Engrave mode or align the “sweet” word to the left, but I was wondering if these kind of manual adjustments are to be expected if there is a global option to set somewhere.
If you switch to Engrave mode, and activate Note Spacing in the toolbox on the left, what percentage fullness is showing for this system?
Do you have a casting off setting set? Ie-5m in every system? If so, dorico does the best it can but it can’t make as much space as it needs because it’s being told to put more measures on that stave than it wants to. Lyrics never collide for me if dorico is allowed to calculate spacing freely. In fact, I usually need to tighten things up bc it’s too generous.
If you have set a fixed casting off, you can either manually kick the last measure of this system to the next with a system break, or remove the casting off settings all together if this is happening frequently (or at least lower the value to 4).
I have 83,6%, everywhere else a bit more than that.
Interesting… was this an xml import?
I went to the Casting Off section and everything is unchecked.
For what it’s worth, I’ve definitely found situations where the algorithms just get it wrong, generally in a situation like the OP’s where there’s a long single syllable on one note.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the font choice… every font has its own peculiarities and default character spacing.
I think i have found the culprit! It is the custom Playing Technique that I have added to tell to play on the VII fret but the collision happens only because it is carried on from the previous measure. If I remove the playing technique and add two of them then Dorico does its job.
I think it is an inner interference.
Update: I just removed the playing technique and reapplied it as intended and now the lyrics are fine.
Usually I stick to the default as much as I can!
I thought it looked like bravura, but there are other similar fonts out there so I didn’t want to assume.
There is one font that I love that has perfectly normal serif characters, but its default letter spacing is a tad on the wide side, so if I use that font in affinity publisher, I tighten up the spacing a little bit. Other fonts respond differently (some allow the characters to dynamically nestle, others don’t) hence my comment.
Funnily enough, I almost suggested that line marking (PT) might have affected it too. Glad you sorted it out.
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You mean Academico?
I’m eagerly waiting for tracking. In the meantime, if the OP is looking for a tighter font than Academico, there are options.
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Oh! How could you tell?
I know I’ve mentioned before that I dearly love Iowan Old Style but I might have to defect to Minion (a favorite of yours, I know) just for the tighter default spacing. Hymns and psalms are made or broken by these tiny spaces as you know only too well. Iowan has the unfortunate characteristic of being one of the fonts that takes up a fair bit of room by default, more than necessary IMHO.
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PT = Playing Techniques, got it now. Well, it was that and it happened in other places as well, even if the PT was on two bars in the same system, I mean not on a new line. I just had to delete it and do it again. Somehow they made Dorico stumble. Is that a tiny little bug?
May I make a suggestion? I know that this isn’t the point of this thread and that you indeed seem to have identified a small bug, but I find Dorico’s defaults for spacing for lyrics a bit on the generous side, especially as concerns the spacing around hyphens and between syllables. In your example, the syllables in Fac-ing could certainly be closer to the hyphen without affecting the readability, and it would also reduce the note spacing distortion.
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You are right indeed, thank you for the advice.
Yes, it should be Academico, I didn’t know it was so not tight, now I feel compelled to try Minion Pro.
I agree, @Vaughan_Schlepp that the default spacing around hyphens is a bit too generous (in general, not just this example). Fortunately there are parameters to help with this.
Nice thing about Minion Pro is that it also has a condensed version, which is excellent for lyrics.
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