Formatting of multiple lines of lyrics not working as expected.
I'm having difficulties with the new 'auto formatting' option when it comes to lyrics.
I create a lot of scores with multiple lines of lyrics. If for some reason I didn't like the vertical placement of lyrics in a particular system I used to be able to select all of the lyrics in just that system and change the 'y' placement. The 'x' placements would all remain intact (even if some of the individual words had different 'x' placements) and the lyrics would move cleanly up or down.
Now to get the 'y' placement to change at all i have to turn off the 'auto formatting'. When I do that the 'x' placement seems to go bonkers and I have to re-align all of those manually in that system.
Then, if I have to select the 'y' placement again on the group of lyrics in that system to adjust the vertical placement as soon as I move even one click all lyrics in that system appear to jump horizontally to whatever value is in the 'x' placement dialogue and I lose all my fine tuned horizontal placement.
Changing the 'y' placement used to keep the 'x' placement intact and only move the lyrics vertically.
I love some of the changes in 3.0 but not digging the new handling of multiple lines of lyrics so much.
thanks!
pg3712
Texas USA
Comments
It should be much less common to want to change the vertical placement now, but if you do, indeed, the code that tries to keep everything aligned seems rather over-zealous. Can you share a score that demonstrates the need to do this?
Meanwhile, I couldn't find an open issue for this, so I filed one: #283796: Manual adjustment of vertical offset for lyrics not possible. Note there is also #282629: Lyrics can not be be placed above/below staff individally, only the whole verse which seems related but may or may not be in reality.
In reply to It should be much less… by Marc Sabatella
Thank you Marc,
Perhaps I am overzealous with what I'm wanting for an end result. I usually am trying to cram a lot of information into one page while keeping as large a scale as possible for notes and lyrics.... and to make the music break from system to system in a logical and hopefully visually appealing way.
Because I like to be in control I usual end up trying to move things around to dress them up to my liking.
Older versions of the software seem to be more willing to release that control to me. LOL :)
In a way, related to this problem it turns out that many of the single page scores I created in version 2 cannot be made to fit on a single page in version 3 without lowering the scaling in the page settings.. Which in turn makes my lyrics and notes print smaller.
I'm attaching three scores where I have had the problems. I really love MuseScore and am impressed with what it allows me to do, but it seems that with every major upgrade there always comes a re-learning process.
In reply to Thank you Marc, Perhaps I am… by pg3712
Actually, the biggest secret to getting MsueScore 2 scores to take less room in MsueScore 3 is to undo the customizations you may have made to the lyrics bottom margin (now found in Format / Style / Lyrics). Previously you needed to do that as a kludgy way to avoid collisions with the staff below, but automatic placement means you don't need this any more.
Anyhow, if you explain what specifically you want different in any of those scores, I can try to help.
In reply to Actually, the biggest secret… by Marc Sabatella
Marc,
Here is a current example that I'm working with... This one was created from scratch in Musescore 2.0 and I was, without a lot of trouble, able to get it to look like the pdf I have attached below.. However, I pulled that mscz file into Musescore 3.0 and selected default placement. After a good bit of fiddling about the best I can do is what you see in the mscz attached. I can't seem to get the lyrics any closer to the bottom staff in any of the systems.. and the auto line-up of verse numbers doesn't appear to be working on this one either.
What should I be doing differently.
I'm including the good version from Musescore 2 labeled with (MS2) in the filename.
I'm including a pdf version of that same version showing how it printed out also labeled with (MS2) in the filename.
And I'm including that Musescore 2 version as opened in Musescore 3 with some editing to try and move things around a little bit... It's the mscz file with (MS3) in the filename.
I appreciate any help or advice you can offer.
Thanks,
pg3712
In reply to Marc, Here is a current… by pg3712
As I suggested, simply reducing the lyrics bottom margin in Format / Style / Lyrics does what you need. In MuseScore 2, you had it at 2.5 which is closer than the default of 4, but that 2.5 is measured to the top staff line. So your value was really just barely enough to clear the notes above the staff. To get the same result in MsueScore 3, simply reduce this value to 0. Actually, same for the top margin; you had also made that very close.
In reply to As I suggested, simply… by Marc Sabatella
Marc,
My apologies.. I just realized that I keep hitting the lyrics "y" position above and "y" position below settings to try and fix it. I am able to use the lyrics minimum top and bottom margins to move the lyrics. That works as expected..
What about the lack of vertical alignment on the verse numbers on that last mscz file? The "align verse numbers" option was checked but the verses are not aligning. Any ideas what I'm missing on that one?
At this point the only other complaint I have on Musescore 3.0 is that I am still not able to squeeze as much information onto a page as I was on Musescore 2.0 without resorting to reducing the scaling on the page settings. I can take a score from 2.0 and import it into 3.0. Even after reducing layout stretch as much as the new version will allow I end up having to go into page settings, scaling to get the same information to fit on a single page. (With Musescore 2.0 I couldn't get as much to fit as I could with Musescore 1.0 so I'm kind of used to have to deal with that.. but, if that continues, by Musescore 10.0 not much is going to fit on a page. :) ).
Thanks for your help!!
In reply to Marc, My apologies.. I just… by pg3712
Grearding verse numbers, it seems the superscripted numbers are throwing things off. The code is trying to align the text after thsoe, and it's calculating the width of the superscripted characters badly. Removing the superscripting (via Remove Custom Formatting in the Inspector) shows this more clearly, as does actually deleting the superscripted numbers. In any case, the code for handling verse numbers could definitely use improvement.
I see that MuseScore 2, you were able to fit four measures on the third system, and again in the last, and this isn't happening in MuseScore 3 even if I reduce stretch as much as possible. The lyrics are extremely tight int he MsueScore 2 version and my assumption is that MuseScore is not allowing lyrics that tight without disabling autoplace. In 2.x the minimum distance between lyrics was controlled by the "Minimum note distance" style setting, which defaults to 0.25 sp, but it looks like in MuseScore 3 this value is hard-coded as 0.5 sp. I think we should move this out to a separate style value in the Format / Style / Lyrics. I did a quick test, and if I force that value down to 0.2, then you can get back to the MuseScore 2 spacing. Not sure why the old value of 0.25 didn't quite work, could actually be related to the superscripting as well. [EDIT: no, maybe it's that we actually force this margin on both sides of the lyric, meaning it's really enforcing a distance of twice this value]
I would encourage you to submit official issues on these two points using the issue tracker (see Support menu above, or Help / Report a Bug from within MuseScore). For the request to add a minimum lyric distance style setting, make set the Severity to "Suggestion"; for the verse alignment, make it "Major".
In reply to Grearding verse numbers, it… by Marc Sabatella
Actually, I submitted the suggestion for the lyric distance setting myself - see #284235: Too much space between lyrics. Now that I understand what is going on, it really does seem a bug to me. We are enforcing a full 1sp of space between syllables in addition to the value of "Minimum note distance". No wonder things are taking more space! The question to me is, would simply reverting to the 2.x behavior of using the minimum note distance only as the minimum space between lyrics, or is it worth adding another style setting to optionally enforce additional space. That is something I'd like to see discussed in the issue thread.