Size of the PDF

• Jun 22, 2013 - 18:10

Hello there, everyone,

A professor of mine has asked me for some help as we create a new version of our Vespers liturgical books, and as I work on this I'm running into a couple hitches I had never anticipated before, because I usually just write music on the sheet and leave it like that.

I don't have access to the musical program that originally made the Vespers books, so I'm trying to figure out all the settings in MuseScore. I am attaching three files (two jpegs and a pdf) to attempt to show what I'm trying to do. Here's a description of each of them...

tranquil1 is the music from one of our other liturgical books that my professor wishes to include in the Vespers book.

tranquillight1-1 is a different version of the music, but as you can see on the page he's scanned, he has written for me that he would like tranquil1's format to look like this one does. He means the size of the notes, the general format, and so on. Most importantly, however, is that the REAL SIZE of tranquillight1-1 that you see is the actual size of the page of the Vespers book.

So, once it comes to my PDF (Tranquil Light Dvoretsky, which is still under construction), exactly how do I resize the page in MuseScore to align with the size of the page that we're looking for? I am not sure how to do this. Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you!
-James

P.S. Yes, I realize that not all the attachments are in the first post, am attaching them all gradually...

Attachment Size
tranquillight1-1.jpg 1.11 MB
Tranquil Light Dvoretsky.pdf 91.71 KB

Comments

Here's tranquillight1-1

...aaand it's not uploading for some reason, and is definitely not 2 MB in size. Odd.

Well, in any case, tranquil1 is still roughly the same page size anyways, so the example works just as well. I'd like the version I'm writing in MuseScore to be resized to what we see in tranquil1.

In reply to by Verden Leafglow

Well, hang on. I think I may have figured it out, but I still have questions...

Layout -> Page Settings lets me resize the size of the page, which is good. Sometimes some of the options here and in General Settings are hard to understand, though, and I'm not sure what they do...

Even so, if I have a particular line of notes, sometimes there's lots of stretch between the notes before there's a normal little bar, and sometimes there's less stretch. Is there a way for the notes to remain with the same compactness throughout the piece, even if there's barlines all over the place?

Also, do notes have "formatting?" Can I make them look different, resized, shorter tails, and so on?

Thanks.

In reply to by Verden Leafglow

It would help if you could post the score itself so we can see what in particular you need help achieving. Normally, note spacing works well automatically, but sometimes if MuseScore can't quite fit another measure on a line, the notes on that line will be stretched out a little more - exactly as with a word processor trying to right justfy a line that is kind of short but doesn't quite have room for the next word. You can't change basic arithmetic - if one line has 20 notes and the next has only 12, the line with 12 notes is going to have wider spacing. But you can certainly exert control over where the line breaks are if you don't like the defaults - use Layout add more/less stretch combined with manual line breaks from the palette.

Have you read Layout and formatting ? Useful info there.

You can lengthen and shortn stems - double click and adjust handle. You can make notes "small" (right click, Note Properties, small). And miscellaneous other things. Again, there is something in particular you having trouble figuring out, please describe in more detail.

"So, once it comes to my PDF (Tranquil Light Dvoretsky, which is still under construction), exactly how do I resize the page in MuseScore to align with the size of the page that we're looking for? I am not sure how to do this. Any help would be appreciated."

Open "Page Settings" and choose "Custom" for your page dimensions. Set them to your desired values. Now, adjust the "Scaling" box to change the overall size of the notes until your score appears somewhat contained within your set dimensions. As Marc said, you can further adjust individual lines using line breaks.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Ok, so here's the .mscz file (one of many). If you go into Page Layout...I've measured out with a ruler the millimeters of the pages in the book to which I am matching the size, and I cut down the note size a little to match the size of the notes in the book as well. BUT...when I save as PDF, it simply does not print at that size. All there is to it.

Attachment Size
Song of Simeon.mscz 4.87 KB

In reply to by Verden Leafglow

Well, printing a PDF depends on the specific program and perhaps printer driver you are using. Some PDF printing programs may automatically be scaling things to fit the actual paper, and some printer drivers may have such an option as well. What is the program you are using to print the PDF, and how are you setting its options? And how about your printer driver settings?

I'm using 1.3 on Windows 7. When I go to page layout, I see the page size is set to 176mm by 216mm, and the "space" setting is 1.564mm. If I then "Save As" PDF, I get the file that I have attached. I can verify by loading it into Adobe Reader that the page size *is* in fact set to 176x216mm. And when I print it - being careful to turn off all re-scaling options in Adobe Reader and in my printer driver - I can verify through actual measurement that the total staff height is a little over 6mm, which works out to a space size of a little over 1.5mm. If it's off at all, can't be by more than a very small fraction of a millimeter.

Attachment Size
Song of Simeon.pdf 36.63 KB

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Hm, ok, this actually really helps! I wasn't aware of some of the printer driver options. Let me fiddle around with my printer a little bit and see what happens...

I'm using Adobe Reader to print.

Aha...I just ran a test. My margins are a bit big, but my note size is EXACTLY what I want and it printed properly! Thank you, this works! :D All I had to do is find the right buttons to push. :P

God bless!
-VL

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