As I am working with more and more music in Dorico, am I running across something that would be a huge time saver for me, and possibly many others.
Below is an example of something I am coming across. Currently, I have to manually center the text item over the bar. It would be nice in the future, if text (along with other items as well) could have a choice to be “centered between bar lines”.
I would think you could do this by making the text centre-aligned and inputting it at the rhythmic halfway point in the bar, couldn’t you?
I think I have done that, and it looks a little a off center to me. I can try again and see if maybe I did something wrong the times I have tried it. The current example was center aligned and I still had to move it into place. The text object was aligned at beat 3.
Robby
Robby, first of all, you have a fine eye! It is ever so slightly a little to the left. However there are a few things going on to make it appear more left of center than it actually is. If measured from the centerline of the outside letters, then it is exactly centered from the left barline to the first of the double barline. But the combination of:
a) the eye taking in the bar as being encapsulated by the single-to-double barline
and
b) the “v” being wider than the “l”
and
c) the intrusion into the bar of the Rehearsal Mark
gives it a more slight-to-the-left look to the centering.
Even if Dorico were to have “centered on bar” capability, I doubt that it would give that perfect centered look out of the box as different fonts, kearning, styles, etc. will always have an effect on the visual aspect. Things will need to be manually moved in those instances where optical illusions are happening, and much of this is an artistic, individual’s decision. I hereby plunk down my 2 cents. 
[Edit] I just thought of another thing. Placing this text on the 3rd beat is no guarantee that it will be centered because the location of beat 3 it is dependent on the content of the bar, so Daniel’s suggestion might only get you close to centered.
If measured from the centerline of the outside letters, then it is exactly centered from the left barline to the first of the double barline
If the font were monospaced, then it would make sense.
But this is not monospaced font.
AFAIK, for non-monospaced fonts, most software center the line of text based on letters’ edge.
So, Robby’s perception is perfectly justifiable, and that’s exactly how the user will see it.
Hence, a question to Daniel: how should we deal with that visual imperfection?
Igor Borodin
In the absence of a feature to measure the text item and centre it visually, you’d have to do it manually by nudging the text item in Engrave mode.
Thank you, Daniel.
