Hyphen not working for lyrics

• Sep 18, 2024 - 05:14

I cannot connect syllables...

"Hyphen (to connect syllables): Press - at the end of a syllable."

Pressing "-" on ym keybaord does not work whatsoever. Super super frustrating I've had this issue ever since Musescore migrated to version 4 I'm not sure why its like that but if anyone can give me any pointers or at least tell me if this is known bug or its just been broken for me for almost a year now and I don't know why

My work around is manually typing the hyphen by pressing (on Mac) option + "-" but you can see what a hyphen is supposed to look like (first) vs what it looks like for me (second one).
Screenshot 2024-09-17 at 21.12.47.png

Comments

• Sep 18, 2024 - 17:49

The first hyphen was from pasting my lyric: to- ge- ther

So I did paste, paste, and here for this 3rd note its still the syllable "ge" so I would normally press "-" here to extend the hyphen over 2 notes but it doesnt work. So what I do it press option + "-" (type the hyphen manually) and then paste the remaining syllable "ther"

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• Sep 19, 2024 - 16:10

If i read the handbook correctly you need to press the hyphen twice in this case. The first press will only move to the first B in your example, and pressing the hyphen again will move input to the next B leaving just the hyphen under the first B.

(I don't work so much with lyrics or MS 4, so there might be something I'm missing)

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• Nov 4, 2024 - 16:23

I am also having hyphen problems in musescore 4. Look at this ugly hyphen at the beginning of the system (measure 8):
It is crowded up against the syllable. Yes, I can add a space after the hyphen with Ctrl>space, but it is a pain when it used to work properly. Thank you.

Attachment Size
Musescore ugly hyphen.png 28.84 KB

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• Jan 28, 2025 - 22:30

So, some style guides say that, when a word is divided over a line break, there should be a hyphen before the syllable on the new line; other style guides say to omit it. In Mu3, and earlier versions of Mu4, this wasn't an option--the second hyphen was always omitted. In the current Mu4, not only is it an option, it's the default--look in style>>lyrics.

However, I don't understand why there should be any hyphen between "dwelling" and "place" in the first place: are you thinking of it as one word: "dwellingplace"?

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• Jan 29, 2025 - 15:17

“ However, I don't understand why there should be any hyphen between "dwelling" and "place" in the first place: are you thinking of it as one word: "dwellingplace"?”

That was my first thought. Oddly, though, a lot of the original psalters and also scores have it with a hyphen, e.g. https://hymnary.org/text/how_lovely_is_thy_dwellingplace_scottish. Even my Church Hymnary Third Edition of 1973 has the hyphen. However it is definitely not modern English … or Scots ;-)

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• Feb 7, 2025 - 22:34

You might want to read the thread more carefully. No one (so far as I can see) actually had a problem. Several people said something along the lines of "Oh, my mistake".

Hyphens in lyrics work perfectly on my computer and the VAST majority of other users. If they're not working on yours, there's something specific going on with your machine. Identify your computer's operating system and version. Identify the version of MuseScore Studio you have (Help / About MuseScore Studio). And provide a score with the issue.

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• Apr 7, 2025 - 01:47

I used Musescore 3+ for years... and to enter a 'connected syllable' I pressed 'hyphen' key and it worked always without any problems. Week ago installed new Musescore (version 4+) and using 'hypen' for lyrics in Musescore is not anymore working at all (it's not possible to create normal 'connected syllables' in lyrics anymore). Same time, if I write name of Title or Subtitle or Composer name or normal text, then using 'hypen' key is not problem... it's just 'inserting lyrics' where 'hypen' key is not working at all...
By the way I don't use (never used) 'english' keyboard with Musescore... maybe it's a problem of new Musescore 4+ with non-english 'QWERTY' keyboards (or some similar subject problem)

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• Feb 26, 2025 - 10:03

Hi everyone! If you have this issue, make sure you can still type hyphens in notepad. Today my keyboard abruptly stopped doing hyphens OR underscores. Well, I say 'keyboard' but it's not a mechanical issue ---- I can still use [ctrl + -] in musescore and in other programs. It must be a driver problem or something, perhaps a windows update messed this up for me. Luckily I have a different keyboard to use.

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• Apr 2, 2025 - 16:17

I am having the same issue. I have tried every solution in this thread.
When I press the hyphen button on the keyboard nothing happens. Literally nothing. No hyphen appears
My keyboard layout is in Icelandic and I tried changing it to English. It did nothing.
I tried copying a hyphen from another programme and pasting it. It did nothing.
I tried changing the dash settings as someone suggested. It did nothing.
There is no hardware problem, as hyphens work perfectly in all other applications.

This is only happening in Musescore. I updated to Musescore 4.5 yesterday and the problem started then. I was using Musescore 3.0 up until then and never had problems, so this must be an issue in the newest version.

Exact same problem with melismas, I press underscore and nothing happens.

Does anyone have a solution, not already mentioned in this thread?

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• Apr 2, 2025 - 18:38

I wonder: 4.5.0 was having problems with the AltGr key on non-English keyboards. Possible that it has similar problems with other keystrokes on non-English keyboards? Since OP said that they are using an Icelandic keyboard?

@svarfdal, I'm'a guess that you do not have to use AltGr to type the hyphen or underscore character. If you do, that's probably the issue and you need to upgrade to 4.5.1 which resolved that issue.

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