Lyrics… !
Sometime in French poetry, we need to use the «tirêt» (draw ?) ( - ) at both the beginning and at the end of a sentence.
Meaning that : -the following is a comment-
In Dorico pressing that key ( - ) moved the «Lyrics Popover» on the next note assuming that ( - ) is always a «hyphen» between sylables.
So, the question is :
is there a way to acheive such a sentence starting and finishing between «tirêts»
Here is the Texte source :
Hi Alain.
I am quite obsessive with typography, and actually it is a mistake to think the hyphen - is used before a comment. You should use the — (which I write using alt and hyphen, it is a “tiret long” or tiret-em because it has the same width as a M). You will notice that there is no problem to write these in Dorico. BUT in order to do it really well, such a “—” should be followed by an unbreakable space (espace insécable) which can be achieved in Dorico by pressing ctrl-alt-space or alt-shift-space.
Hope I am clear enough — otherwise I can write it in french, it will be easier for me !
Marc,
Thanks,
Very help full…
In Americam (US) keyboard
“—” Shift + Alt + (-)
In French (CSA) keyboard
“—” Shift + Alt + 0
unbreakable space
ctrl-alt-space (for both)
…
P.-S. Marc, bien sur nos échanges seraient plus simples en français…
I prefer the shorter en-dash for this purpose, which is still longer than a hyphen, especially if you’re going to separate it with the space. En-dash is Option-hyphen (without Shift) on Mac.
(Unfortunately I can’t illustrate the difference clearly in this forum, since the message body is displayed in either Trebuchet or Lucida Grande, both of which (for two different reasons) have hyphens the same length as their en-dashes.)
Dear Mark,
Thank you for that remark. At first I did not think it was correct to use en-dash (tiret moyen ou demi-cadratin- instead of em-dash (tiret long ou cadratin) in French, but thanks to you, I looked again to check that and you are right, they are both usable.
What is funny is that my keyboard binding to achieve the en-dash on my french keyboard is alt-shift-hyphen, alt-hyphen being em-dash. Maybe that reflects how often those two are more popular in our different languages ?
Sorry to bring that thread out again… I still have a problem with french tiret, that is I cannot force Dorico to add the right length… When I force it, I always get a en-dash, but if I have to write « t-el - le » as lyrics under a note, I can only have a too long dash between the t and elle, and even the spacing of it looks wrong (there should be small spaces before and after the little dash)
Is there any solution I don’t know or is it planned?
Marc, could you use a hard space (I think it’s Alt-space or Alt-shift-space, though I’m not in front of my computer and French keyboards may be different!) followed by an en-dash followed by another hard space?
Yes, of course, but it does not solve the problem. The en-dash IS too long. Actually, it is called «trait d’union» in French and is half the length of the en-dash (tiret demi-quadratin). Since we’re talking here about gold standard, I would like to have the possibility to choose a forced «trait d’union» when required.
Gotcha! Sorry to have slightly misread - that en-dash looks awfully like an em-dash to me, hence the confusion.
Don’t pull out the “gold standard” thing as a dig, Marc. It’s unbecoming.
So you want to use the hyphen-minus character (Unicode U+002D), which maps onto the - key (on an English keyboard, anyway) within lyrics? There are plenty of alternative characters that you could use, e.g. non-breaking hyphen (U+2011), minus sign (U+2212), etc., but their exact width will depend on the font you’re using.
Another option is to type e.g. “t-el” into a plain text editor and then paste it into the Shift+L popover.
No offence intended, dear Daniel! And thanks to you, I learned a new word!
I think the key is Unicode characters, thank you. With U+2011 I find it a little bit too long, but there are the spaces around it. Still I like this better and will stick to that solution. The same goes with U+2212. The font I use is Academico (the default font for lyrics I think).
[Edit] Actually I think I understand why I find it strange. In french, it’s the same «trait d’union» between the a and the t, and the t and elle. Qu’a-t-elle…
The automatic hyphens are shorter (because of the engraving options, I should maybe change them… Wait, I cannot change hyphens width for lyrics!) and this difference is what makes it look wrong.
[New Edit] Finally, Daniel, you gave me (again, and so many thanks for your amazing support) the right solution : copy-paste from an external editor gives the right looks I was looking for.
Now that I found a workaround, the situation is not critical anymore. Yet I think it would be great to be able to find a way to input this kind of text character directly in Dorico.
I find that the problem with the trait d’union is related to Academico font. Using Linux Libertine O and inputting the Unicode +U002D as Daniel suggested works perfectly.
Well done, Marc. You did it!
A transposition job has landed on my desk, and I note for the first time that in French music it’s typical for some hyphens to be hyphens (-) and others to be closer to underscores (_). And for that matter, some of them seem to disappear altogether. See attached screenshot of source material by way of illustration.
Marc, Alain and anyone else knowledgeable in this area:
a) is this still standard practice?
b) is there an obvious way to do the lower hyphens in Dorico?
c) have you found a method of forcing hyphens to disappear when the spacing makes it necessary?
Regarding question c) I’ve experimented with Engraving Options and haven’t found a way of getting Dorico to hide hyphens when the spacing’s too tight (though I may not be looking in the right place, or the option might be right in front of my nose!). I seem to remember that Sibelius had an option for this…
P.S. Brownie points for anyone who identifies this rather beautiful song.
Leo, I’ve fudged some of these with a hard space or two, once the layout is pretty set.
A quick look at the ASCII tables suggests there are only en, em, minus and underscore; could the latter work?
Le beau voyage By Henry Bataille (thank you Google).
From a purely French musician psychic about typography (as you can see in the previous posts) : this is WRONG. I certainly understand why there’s a difference between the first hyphen (which is a necessary in the middle of “Peut-être” as it is necessary in “qu’a-t-elle dit”) and the lower ones that indicate hyphenated words. But anyone who knows French would understand even if the hyphens were all the same. I believe keeping hyphens (+U002D if not between two notes) is the proper way of writing it, but accept to be proved wrong (since I am not psychic at 100%)
Thanks Steve, thanks Marc.
And Mark, who set it?
Are you saying that the underscores have been wrongly introduced, Marc; perhaps that they’re there more as printer’s/setter’s marks, than lyricists?
The wonderful Nadia Boulanger?
