Place arbitrary text in front of a system
I am setting some chants, each consisting of one or two systems, together onto one page. I would like to add text in centre of, and before the start of first system of each chant. This text acts in the same way as adding a instrument long name to one of the parts - it will shorten the system by the length of the text and put the text before the first bar of the stave.
It may be that there is some way of changing the instrument long name on a system by system basis. If there is, then that works because I can name just one part and move it up and down as I want. I just haven't found the method to do that (yet).
Comments
To change the long name, Right click on the staff. On the speed menu click "Staff properties..." The large white area on the left side a little more than 1/2 way down is the long instrument name.
Make sure you click "OK" to accept your changes, pressing enter in this field adds a new line.
While it would be technical possible to do this by creating a score in which each chant was a separate staff and then using Hide empty staves so that only the active one displayed, I don't think I'd recommend that route. Instead, I'd do this more directly. Add a horizontal frame in front of the first measure of each chant, add the text to that, resize manually.