Pdf imperfections with beams
This is not a bug but it has been bugging me for a long time--since version 1.2., the first I ever dowloaded. When you look at the attached Pdf file and scrutinize the beams you'll see something that takes away from the professional appearance of the score: Whenever a beam is perfectly horizontal it is a little fatter than otherwise and it overlaps the stems at both ends ever so slightly. Tilted (even just barely tilted) beams by contrast look exactly like in good quality commercial printed sheet music. If you have a horizontal double beam (i.e. sixteenths) the two parallel beams will often merge into one super broad beam. I have avoided this by setting the beam distance to 65% or more (up from the default of 50%). That way I only observe the beam-merge very rarely in small notes.
I have been wondering if there is an improvement in the works or if I can do something different. This effect can be seen in Pdfs generated by the menu in musescore or by saving a Pdf off the print command (I have a Mac). The same effect is also present in Pdfs downloaded from musescore.com.
This is obviously not a killer; my scores are perfectly readable and look quite nice overall.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Sonata 11:2 1.pdf | 351.5 KB |
Comments
Yes I have the same problem (especially when it's uploaded online). However, for PDFs, when you zoom in, the staves get clearer.
You don't mention anything about how it actually looks (i.e., when you print it out). This seems like just a digital issue. Keep the beam spacing at 50% if you want things to look professional.
Here's a way to see if the pdf actually looks "correct." Email the file to yourself and preview the pdf from your email. If everything looks fine, then there's nothing wrong with the file.
In reply to You don't mention anything… by HG19
Well you don't really need to email it to yourself.
In reply to I looked at the PDF and it's… by Quinn Ouyang
The "screen" issue of thick lines doesn't occur in the web browser .., for whatever reason. In any case, it's not a printing issue.
Sorry I left this alone for so long. Many thanks everybody!
It has been a long time now but I did print Pdfs that had double beams appear as single monster beams. I got aware of this issue that way but it was still with Version 1 and probably 1.1 or 1.2, not 1.3. Since then I did not print any score if I saw such things on the screen but fixed them first by enlarging the beam to beam distance, so I have to admit that for version 2 I can't assert that the problem exists also on printed sheets.