Annoying Gap Between the Flat Sign and the Note Name

• May 3, 2017 - 12:23

When I change the Chord Name Font to Times New Roman there are annothing gap between the Chord Name and the Flat Sign.

How to fix that?

Attachment Size
Times New Roman.png 23.69 KB

Comments

In reply to by zanshin777

The chord description files are found in the "Styles" folder under wherever you have installed MuseScore. Make a copy of the one called "chords_std.xml", place it in your own personal Styles folder (next to your Scores folder), and edit it with your favorite text editor. Then specify that you want to use this file via Style / General / Chord Symbols. There are some comments in the file to suggest what you can do, if you need more specific assistance once you get that far.

But I am not sure why you'd bother when the default FreeSerif works just fine right out of the box.

Edit: I see, looks like maybe you are starting with the Jazz Lead Sheet tempalte then modifying some things? If you don't want to use jazz-style chord symbols, better not to use that template, unless there are other aspects of it you do want. But anyhow, FreeSerif is the default for all other templates, or if you don't use a template but instead choose instruments manually.

In reply to by zanshin777

As I said before, it works unless you are using the Jazz chord style. You are using the Jazz chord style, so change it to Standard (Style / General / Chord Symbols) and then you can use whatever font you like.

Not sure what you mean by "serious". You are using a jazz template and/or selected the jazz chord symbol style, so I might assume you are producing jazz charts. If so, then this really *is* the sort of font you want. "Serious" jazz is virtually always published with this sort of font. Roman fonts etc are almost never used for chord symbols in jazz. In other styles, the default freeSerif font should work well, though.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

BTW, when I say FreeSerif is the default, I mean, if you *aren't* using a jazz template. Realistically, if you are producing a jazz chart, best to use the jazz template and use the Jazz chord symbol style - that's what jazz musicians and publishers are used to and will generally prefer. But if you are *not* producing a jazz chart, probably best to not use that template. Just use the basic "Treble Clef" template, which will have all default settings - meaning Standard chord symbol style, and FreeSerif for all text.

You can also create your own templates - simply set up a score how you like then save it to your Templates folder. So if you really want a chart that uses the MuseJazz font everywhere else and otherwise uses jazz conventions (winged repeats, etc) but nevertheless uses FreeSerif for chord symbols, just create a new score from the jazz Lead Sheet template, change the chord symbol style to Standard and the Text Style to FreeSerif, then save to your Templates folder under a new name.

I think I know why the gap appears. It's because in many fonts the glyph for a flat sign is missing. This just happened to me and I managed to solve it.
I wanted to use New Century Schoolbook in a score instead of FreeSerif but when I changed the instrument names to the first one the same annoying gap described by zanshin777 appeared in the instrument name of the clarinet in B flat. I opened the font in FontForge and discovered there was no glyph for the flat sign. The system (I'm on a Mac) was replacing the sign with the bitmap image from the character list, which has the flat centred inside a white square and that is the reason why the gap appears.
The solution was simple: I opened FreeSerif in FontForge, copied the glyph and pasted it in the proper place in New Century Schoolbook (View>Goto>U+266D). I then generated a new otf file and replaced the one in my fonts folder, and voilà! No annoying gap anymore! :-)

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Yes, that's true if I upload the work to musescore.com which, in this case, I don't intent to do (I won't explain why because it has nothing to do with the topic of this discussion). But your point is a good one. My solution will not work for anyone uploading files to musescore.com or anyone who wants to share them with others as MSCZ files (no problem with PDF's of course) by any other means.
On the other hand, my post does explain why the gap appears. At least in the case of New Century Schoolbook.

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.