Laying out in columns

• Feb 29, 2012 - 17:46

Hi, gang. Trying to get a score to lay out in three columns across a legal-sized sheet (8.5x14" for those not familiar). Is there any way to do this? If so, I am totally unfamiliar. It would make reading so much easier for the choir. Much obliged.


Comments

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Do you have a score laid out like this somewhere you could post a picture of? I can picture what a three-solumn layout might look like, but I've enevr ever seen published music that uses this, and I'm not sure if you're maybe thinking about putting the soprano part in one column, alto in another, baritone in another, or what.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Actually, here's what I want to do. This was accomplished by laying out the chart in another notation program, which produced a three-page score, outputting the score to PDF, then bringing each separate page into a desktop publishing program to put the score in three columns on one legal-sized sheet. I would prefer to do that within MuseScore if possible.

Attachment Size
litany for choir 2011.pdf 670.95 KB

In reply to by km2002

I can't think of a way to do that aside from the same way you've done in the past, but nor can I think of a reason why a notation program would be expected to support that directly given that if you really need it, it's simple enough to get the way you already doing it. But it's not a conventional format at all, so I can't see any advantage to MuseScore supporting it directly. And it seems rather less efficient use of space than the more traditional layout, so you have to make everything smaller to fit the same amount of music on the page as you would normally. What is it you feel would make it easier for the choir?

And for the record, I am not one of the developers, so it's not like I am telling you no, MuseScore will never support this. I'm sure if enough people think it important, it will eventually find its way in. Certainly, you should feel free to register a feature request using the Issue Tracker (see link in menu at right of this page).

In reply to by km2002

I certainly understand the potential advantage of holding the paper in landscape orientation. Just not sure why you think it easier to have to scan down to the bottom of the page and then back up three times, plus needing to use a smaller font to fit it all in, versus just laying out the score in one column and thus only needing to scan down the page once, plus being able to use a larger font.

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