Replacing a lower case "b" with a flat symbol?

Dorico
1

Hi everyone!

How do I replace a lower case “b” with a flat symbol in the text “Bb Clarinet”? Thank you.

Mike

2

Where do you need to change the appearance of Bb Clarinet – staff label, player name, or the part name (top left of p1 in the part)?

3

Hi Lillie,

I’m creating an Instrumentation List on the page before the score. First, there is a Title Page, then an Instrumention List page, and then the score on 4 pages. Here is the list:

Instrumentation

Flute 1

Flute 2

Oboe 1

Oboe 2

Bb Clarinet 1

Bb Clarinet 2

Bassoon 1

Bassoon 2

F Horn 1

F Horn 2

Bb Trumpet 1

Bb Trumpet 2

Trombone

Timpani

Crash Cymbal

Tubular Bells

Sopranos

Altos

Tenors

Basses

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Violoncello

Contrabass

I need to change the lowercase "b"s to flats for the clarinets and trumpets. Thank you for helping me.

Mike

4

Hi Mike,

Is this something you want to do outside of the Dorico project (page before the score)?

I’ve frequently struggled with inserting the flat sign into a text document. Often the result was not accurate enough, and it’s taken a lot of trial and error to get a good solution.

There are quite a few articles which do refer to this problem, giving suggestions as to fonts where the flat symbol can be found. Some are more use than others, and I generally have to reconsult them. I’ve not found any alt code solutions that are satisfactory (either they don’t work at all, or the symbol is incorrectly sized, unadaptable, etc.).

The thing that I’ve needed to do usually is to reduce the (invisible) spacing either side of the flat symbol which makes it look too far away from its letter. Again I don’t do it often enough to remember how to do that, so always have to look up that process again.

That’s probably not a great deal of help, but it would be best to be clear whether you’re needing the text flat inside or outside of Dorico first. If it’s inside then I’m not the best equipped to help (I imagine Lillie may be). If outside, and you can’t solve it then I can try to be a bit more specific!

5

Mike, try replacing b with {@flat@}
[edit] that is as token {@…@} replacing the … with the word flat - for some reason the forum software is too clever here and changes the token into a link…

6

Hi kb,

It worked!!! Thank you so much. Does it also work for a sharp?

Mike

7

There’s a {@playerList@} token you can use too, to help automate the instrumentation list. You may find that useful as well, depending on whether or not you like the formatting style used by that list.

8

Forum pro tip: You can type any characters and escape special functions by enclosing the text in socalled “back-ticks” ``… Thus: {@flat@}

2 Likes
9

Lillie
I need to change the appearance of the b to flat symbol in the left column “Instrumentalists” on the staff label and player name. If I type {@flat@} it doesn’t work, whereas in the right-hand “Layout” column it works fine.
I hope the translation is correct and explicit.

10

Thanks Mark, works perfectly: {@flat@}