If the original poster has the software installed, and it is running in "non eval mode", then he must have used the authenticity code (license?) to install it, no? Is there a way to query the authenticity code from a working installed instance of the program?
I apologize if I am off base here, because it's been a while since I had to do a fresh install. I've had the program for ages - my original installation media was a floppy disk, although I did order a CD some time later, which I keep in a safe place.
It would be a great help if the User Guide (nwc251buide.pdf) had page numbers.
Well, the How To Guide does have page numbers: you can see them in the table of contents But I take your point, it seems that Eric forgot to enable them at the bottom of the pages (they are on in the tutorial)
NWC 2.51 has made this easier. You can right-click while hovering over any notehead on the selected staff. This brings up a context menu that allows you to edit all the properties of that notehead except for its position.
Also except for the Slur property. But I didn't know about the context menu: thanks for pointing that out, it's very handy.
Edit: Someone will most certainly point out that "slur" is not a note property, it's a chord property, so I can see why it wouldn't be displayed in that context menu. But a single note is a special case of a chord, is it not?
To add a bit to David's excellent advice, you don't need to do anything with the stem length if you use a whole note as the grace note. As long as it's muted, it won't affect anything except the shape of the slur. And you can insert them anywhere the slur needs to be adjusted, not just at the ends. Save all your slur work for one session, and then, after you've created the first muted grace note slur handle, just copy-and-paste and adjust as needed.
I'm not at my NWC-installed computer right now, so I can't play with this... I did know that a hidden grace note could be used to bend a slur upward/downward (i.e. make the arch steeper), but I wasn't aware that they could be used to adjust the end points of the slur. Specifically, if I have a stem-side slur, the anchor points are always just beyond the end of the stems, instead of being closer to the note head. Is there any way to adjust this without the layering tricks?
While it's a long way from perfect, I usually do cues as diamond notheads and shorten any stems these days - I STILL want proper cues, but this works well enough for the moment.
This raises an interesting question (well, interesting to me at least): since I rarely (i.e. never) use diamond noteheads, I wonder if it would be possible to create my own copy of the Noteworthy font, substituting small cue noteheads for the diamond ones, and inserting diamond noteheads in my score, thus "tricking" NWC into rendering cue notes.
I don't currently have the font editing tools to let me try this, but I'd probably give it a shot if I thought this was feasible.
To my mind, the user fonts are under your absolute control, and NWC does not try to guess how you would like to have them when you change staff metrics.
Actually, the checkbox on the Staff Size dialog says "Proportionally Scale Other Staff Font Sizes" (emphasis is mine). When it is checked, only the Staff Italic, Staff Bold and Staff Lyric font sizes will be updated; neither the Page nor User fonts will be changed.
There have been times when I would have liked to be able to scale the other fonts sizes when I increased or decreased the staff size. Maybe in a future release, checkboxes could be added to that dialog for scaling the page and/or user fonts during a staff metric size change.
I've been working on a conductor's score for a 378-measure work for large orchestra and soprano. I'm storing the score in two versions, one for my hard-copy printer and the other for my pdf printer. This is necessary because, as anyone who has prepared a work for print knows, different printers often interpret the same command in different ways. In particular, pdf printers tend to dramatically change system breaks and pagination from the same work produced in hard copy.
But here's the interesting thing. When I change from my hard copy printer (HP Photosmart C3180) to my pdf printer (PDFreDirect v. 2), it throws absolutely everything off, particularly in relation to where collapsed staff segments begin and end and where courtesy time signature changes, clef changes, etc., need to be placed at the ends of systems. What I found this morning, however, is that if I reduce the staff metrics from 10 points in the hard copy version to to 9 in the pdf version, almost everything suddenly snaps back into place, and instead of a pdf score six pages longer than its hard copy counterpart, I get one that's just one page longer - and that extra page has only three measures on it.
So - is it the one-point difference, or is it the percentage difference? (At this size, one point is a 10% change.) Is it only the relationship of my specific printer to my specific pdf printer, or do all pdf printers bear the same relationship to all hard-copy printers? I dunno. But I thought others might find it worthwhile to try the same experiment.
I have a slightly different use case, which I've mentioned in a few previous posts, for which I also create hard-copy and "PDF ready" scores. I don't think I've observed the issue you are seeing, when the paper size and margins are the same for the printer and PDF versions of the score, but to be honest, I haven't done any specific tests... but I will now! I have a Samsung laser printer and I use the Nitro PDF converter "printer", and I'll try a few of my multi-page scores to see if they lay out differently.
Have you confirmed that the margins and paper size are the same for both scores? I've noticed that my PDF driver has a "dpi" setting, which I've never changed, and I don't see that changing it should affect the score's layout during printing.
One final question: do you see the same layout changes during print preview, or only on the actual hardcopy or generated PDF? I've noticed that sometimes there are minor differences between final rendering and preview mode.
Yes. See my attachment here: https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?action=dlattach;topic=6341.0;attach=521;image For hymns, I put the lyrics on their own staff and set the boundaries to match the content. Usually, the lyrics do not exactly match any of the vocal parts and this saves futzing with the voices to align the lyrics. I start the lyrics staff with the verse numbers as text, aligned to a grace note followed by a Spacer Command. Adjusting the width of the spacer gives a precise alignment, as shown here: [snip] To get a hymn right, there are many more problems to be overcome that will require layers to the voice staves.
Rick - thanks very much for that idea! It never occurred to me to put lyrics on their own (muted and invisible) staff. As I've probably stated elsewhere, I use NWC to create choral arrangements for our church choir, so sometimes the songs are traditional hymns. One of the things I also run into occasionally with hymns is alternate melodies from one verse to the next, or cases where two notes are slurred for one verse and are distinct for another. For these cases, I have either done extra _ characters in the lyrics, and/or I change the properties of certain notes to "Lyric always" or "Lyric never". It would be nice if NWC had a "dotted slur" for this type of "conditional slur", as well as a way to insert notes with smaller heads (when the melody changes slightly from verse to verse). I've tried to use grace notes for this, and could never get them to "line up" correctly, but I now see that I would probably do this with spacers on the "ghost staff". I'm going to try this!
For verse numbers, I usually use an invisible "lyric always" grace rest, but your way works too (especially on a mute and invisible staff). The main thing is that grace notes/rests take up less space, so the number is effectively left aligned.
Something I'm may also do is load all the pdf charts onto my e-reader. That would allow me to hand that over to a player who can't find his part in his folder - this happens because the guys often swap parts around.
I don't normally need to make scores since I already have them. However, on the few occasions I've done them, I think the easiest way to package them would be in a 1/2 inch three-ring binder, which would work best with two sided printing.
Just a quick addendum - I also use my tablet for music, singing in a choir. I'm using an Android app for managing my music collection which works pretty well for me, but I don't want to 'spam' the forums here with commercial endorsements. If anyone is interested in learning more about the app, please PM me.
On the readability front, one thing that I do for the PDFs that I generate for the tablet is to reduce the margins to a bare minimum. That lets me scale the printed part of the score a bit larger. This trick also works with printed parts that are in a 3 ring binder, if you put the pages in sheet protectors (where the holes are outside of the paper). Plus, the pages turn more quietly in sheet protectors than they do if they are "unprotected".
Good call - I checked the printing preferences in Control Panel for that printer, and in fact the default paper size was set to Letter. So, I changed the default to my custom setting (7x10.5), then did an Apply. Then just to be safe, I exited & reran the Printers applet in CP and double-checked that the custom paper size was still my default. (It was.)
Unfortunately, NWC still isn't co-operating with me. When I change printers, the paper size stays at "Letter" (which is the default for my Samsung laser printer), apparently because there is a Letter option available for the Nitro PDF driver, so NWC doesn't change it.
But an interesting footnote. As a test, I made the Nitro driver my default Windows printer. Then when I run NWC and check its printer setup, it shows that as my default printer, with paper size of 7x10.5 as I would expect. But then if I change the printer to my Samsung, the paper size changes to Letter! (Which I assume is because the Samsung driver doesn't have that custom paper size added) And if I change back to the Nitro, it changes back to its 7x10.5 setting.
I guess I'm still stuck here, unless I want to write a PowerShell script to do the default swapping (which seems messy to me and fraught with peril).
I use Noteworthy Composer to create PDF scores for my Android tablet for use in a choir (and it works very nicely for this ) As such, I "print" my scores using the Nitro PDF Creator printer driver, with a custom "paper size" that matches my tablet's screen aspect ratio (and appropriate minimum margins to maximize screen real estate). I notice that when I launch NWC, it defaults to my Windows Default printer and paper size. I've looked through the various options that be set, but I don't see any way to "remember" the default printer and settings when I launch the application the next time, so I don't have to set them every time I use the program. Maybe there is a way to "script" this when I launch the program?
I do realize that I could change my Windows default printer and settings to accomplish this, but I have a "real" printer that I use for other applications, and would want that to behave "as is".
If there isn't a way to currently accomplish this in NWC, perhaps I'll turn this into a feature request (of course, this "feature" is probably something that should be configurable, since not everyone would want this behavior).
I see there was a thread last year that posed this problem and wonder if any one has resolved it. BTW it was not a problem in previous versions only 2.5.5 (to my knowledge) I use layering to put lyrics under one stave and chords over another. I also use boundary properties to adjust the space between staves, and therefore the lyric and chord text to avoid confusion. This was quite easy in v 2.2 but seems to be impossible in v 2.5.5 as the staff properties appear to be linked. It will make life very difficult if I have to revert but at the moment I see no other option. Can anyone help please.
Hi,
I don't know if this will help with your issue, but I assume you are aware of the "Offset" setting on the lyrics properties. This can be set to a positive or negative number, and will move the lyrics up or down without affecting the upper or lower vertical size.
One thing that I have found is that when you layer staves, the largest upper and lower size for any of the staves will be the "winner" in determining the effective staff size, so I usually set the sizes on all but one of the staves to their minimum values, and use the lyric offset property to put the lyrics on those staves where I want them.
I only use the boundary change commands when I want to hide/show a staff, or if I want to change the upper or lower size of a staff mid-song (i.e. if the lyrics change from 3 lines to 1 line). Unfortunately, when the boundary change command was created, it didn't include the ability to change the lyric offset property. Sometimes I have used a workaround for "number of lyric line" changes, if the number of lines is going down: I put the single lyric line on a later line (i.e. line 2 or 3), and blank out the earlier line(s) (via underscores). That effectively shifts the lyric line downward by that number of lines.
Let me know if this helps.
EDIT: It just occurred to me that with boundary change commands, you probably need to put them on each layered staff so that all of the staves recognize them (again, you are probably already doing this, but just in case...)
Which PDF driver are you using for creating PDF files?
I have the Nitro PDF Creator printer driver installed, and besides approximately one gazillion choices of paper size, there is a Custom choice that will let you specify any size you like, English or metric. I use this driver with NWC all the time, for creating PDF scores that match the aspect ratio of my Android tablet (which I use in my church choir).
This printer driver is part of the free Nitro PDF Reader program.
This post isn't about backward compatibility, but it's an offer of a solution for your situation: your choir members could install the free viewer, which will load, play and even print NWC 2.5x files. The download page is here:
Caveat: I've not installed the new version of the viewer and NWC 1.75 together (and I don't have a way to do that, since I'm already running 2.5x), but I can't think of a reason they couldn't coexist.
I've done the same type of thing, sort of. I sing in a church choir, and we have several "alleluias" that we rotate between on a week to week basis. It was convenient to put them all on a single sheet. They too are in different key signatures (and in some cases, different time signatures). However, I caught myself before printing, because I always do numerous "Print Previews" to make sure that everything is going to fit.
Just in case you did not know about the setting, there is a checkbox on the Key Signature properties called "Hide cancellations" that will prevent these from appearing.
BTW, when I saw that subject line, I was hoping you were announcing a new Captain Broccoli video. What... you've not heard of Captain Broccoli, Musicologist? Well, wait no more...
NWC will not allow a tie from an E natural to an E flat (or vice versa). IMO, this is as it should be. You may want use the Force Accidentals Command to clarify the situation for you. I don't see a bug here. There is some contoversy as to whether NWC should tie an F flat to an E natural. It won't. I stay out of that contoversy
I think Lew is saying that if there are 2 chords, C-E-G and C-Eb-G, if you try to tie them, NONE of the notes will tie. He is saying that at least the C and G should tie.
HOWEVER... I just did my own test, and I don't see the behavior he describes. I am able to have some notes of a chord tied and others not. Note, I am running version 2.5.5.
This is an open "is this possible" post, based on a short thread that I started in the General Discussion area (in case it looks familiar). In that thread, I was talking about the need to adjust stem lengths of flagged notes on a layered staff so they line up for printing purposes. It occurred to me while typing up my description that this would be a great use of a user tool: it could sweep through a staff and automatically modify the note lengths to correspond to the same note on the preceding "parent" staff. However... after reading posts in this forum section, I noticed several comments from users saying that a user tool runs in the scope of a single staff, and can't see or interact with other staves in the score. Is this still the case? (some of those comments were written back when the program version was 2.0 or 2.1)
Another idea would be to save the song in .nwctxt format and then use a tool to read through the entire file a staff at a time, but this could get tricky.
Thanks very much for the pointers. I've used your trick of moving alto notes to the soprano staff (or vice versa), but there are cases when it's nice to have the correct parts on the respective staves. I use NWC for creating printable (and tablet-viewable) scores for our church choir. I've also discovered that NWC can be a great learning tool for people who are trying to learn their parts on a new song. By muting/unmuting individual staves, people can hear their own part, with or without the other parts or accompaniment. If I merge the soprano/alto and tenor/bass on combined staves, then there's no easy way to mute the individual parts. (And yes, I realize I can have two copies of the score, but that seems like a lot of extra work)
On the subject of my initial feature request (changing the behavior of the Override Stem Length control), I had another thought, that I would like to 'pitch' to people out there who have created User Tools. Would it be possible to create a tool that could parse through all (or selected) notes on a layered staff, and find the flagged notes that are pointing in the same direction as the corresponding ones on the parent staff, and then change the lengths of those stems so they are the correct height? (And yes, I just realized that this probably belongs in the User Tool forum section.) The only problem I can see with this idea is that in the discussion I've read on user tools, you can only operate on one staff at a time.
I'm a long time user of NWC (since version 1.5 perhaps?) but not a frequent user of the forums, at least until now. I'm finding a wealth of information here, mainly in tips/tricks/workarounds, and I have a question that I hope people here can answer.
Is there a special section for feature requests or "bug fixes"? (obviously, a bug can be classified as an "unintended feature" I remember the sections for the NWC 2 extended beta, which had much discussion along these lines, and obviously many of the messages here in General Discussion and in Tips & Tricks will mention long-standing "feature requests" such as better handling for slur positioning, beams on split staves, etc. I can also recognize that creating such a section could draw a large number of suggestions and become unruly in a short amount of time, if there wasn't someone keeping things organized, removing duplicate requests, etc.
I've seen posts in some sections by the admins of this site, and I'm note sure how much of our discussion makes it back to the developer(s) for inclusion in new releases. I do see periodic new releases that have added wonderful functions that make the program much more usable for printed music (I want to especially thank them for the recently-added Boundary Change command).
Anyway, in closing I'd like to make a tiny "feature request" that I think would be fairly easy to implement and shouldn't cause any backward compatibility issues, since it's just a "user interface" change. The change I'm requesting has to do with the "Override Stem Length" box in Notation Properties. As most of you know, when you are doing layered staves, you often need to override note stem lengths for flagged notes so the flags line up on both staves. The problem I have is that when I want to bump the stem length up or down, I have to remember to check the box on the left in addition to changing the value. My "feature request" is to have the program automatically check the box if I change the length value (either by typing a new value or by clicking on the up/down buttons). Does anyone else see a problem with this behavior? (i.e. would you find it annoying that the box would be checked for you when you change the value)
For a few scores I have entered, I'd like to be able to insert more than one line of text in either the composer or lyricist section. Example uses would be songs like "Silent Night" or "O Come All Ye Faithful" which have different credits for the original and translated lyrics, or an original composer and an "arranged by" line.
I realize that it's possible to include my own text via the Text feature, or to put some of this information at the bottom of the score via the copyright section(s), but I was wondering if there was a sneaky workaround for inserting a line break in one of the existing areas (perhaps via a User Tool?)
I have very many NWC notations, and I use separate staves for 1st and 2nd instumental parts, and I also adjust the stem length on one of the parts to get the stem lengths to match. When there is a slight mismatch, it is because the stem length value used on the other staff is not an integer value. I go to that staff and click the the "Override Stem Length" for that note using the default value, and then, if necessary, adjusting the stem length on the first staff. I've never seen an instance where this doesn't solve the problem. I'd be interested in seeing your example. It might be something I've not run into.
Thanks Gennaro. Between posting my original message here and reading your reply, I made the same discovery. Checking the "override" box and leaving the value at the default of 7 isn't the same as not checking the box.
I've also had some luck with using the chord / flip note technique that Lawrie described. However, in one case I was 99% complete with the score before I realized that it wasn't going to work since the two voices I had combined (soprano/alto) had different vocal parts, and it ended up being much easier to display both sets of lyrics if I used layered staves.
Thanks again to all of you who have offered suggestions.
G'day Mike, if I've understood correctly, you are layering 2 staves (S & A) and are wanting the flags/beams to overlay?
If so, why not simply use the standard NWC chord construct (<Ctrl-Enter>) ? That way you don't need to worry about the overlaying of the beams etc.
N.B. Usually when entering S & A on a single staff you would have note stems for the Sop. going upwards and for the Alto going down. (using 2 staves overlayed is best for this - Sop stems up, Alto stems down) That way they are always visually completely seperate. If you do need to have the note stems in the same direction for some reason then the Chord suggestion above is probably your answer.
If you really do need to layer (and I normally would) you can still use the standard chord construct for the occasional note(s) and replace on the layered staff with a hidden note or rest.
I hope I've understood your requirements correctly. BTW, I think you'll really enjoy the benefits of the NWC2 beta.
Hello Lawrie,
Thanks for the quick response. You're correct in that I probably could have used chords for the majority of the song, at least for the soprano/alto parts, because their parts are mostly in unison, but there are sections where they sing in a different rhythm. I've read other examples where people have done as you suggest, and reserve the layered staff for only a few measures. I probably would have done that approach if I'd known ahead of time that the flags were going to mess me up :-)
I should also mention that for this instance, I was creating a score to replace a 27th generation photocopy of "Joy to the World" that our choir has been using, and I wanted the appearance to be the same as the singers are used to.
Thanks again for your suggestions.
- Mike
P.S. to Rick - I haven't quite mastered the "clip" thing yet, but I'll try to use that in my next help request.
I apologize in advance if this has been covered in another thread, but after an hour or so of searching/browsing, I haven't found it...
And before I begin, let me give some brief background/context. I've been using NWC forever (I bought 1.5 back in 1998, and just ordered a 1.75 CD so I could take part in the beta and be eligible for 2.0 when it's released). I've always found the program to be an excellent "bang for the buck", compared to the more expensive notation programs out there. I'm an amateur musician, but I'm also a software developer, and I love the User Toolkit PHP thing in the new version.
Okay, on with my request. For the particular problem I'm trying to solve, I am creating a SATB score for our church choir, where the SA parts are on one staff, and TB on another. Layering seems to be the obvious choice, and I've been using the stem length feature to make the 1/8, 1/16, etc. beams & flags "line up" for the parts of the score where the SA or TB tempo are the same. I've noticed in some cases, there is a slight mismatch in the stem heights such that no integer value I can choose will make them line up exactly, so I get a 'blurred' appearance.
Anyway, what I really want to do in these cases is to tell NWC to not draw the flag/beam for a particular note, and to just display the stem. This way the flag/beam on the highest note will print out, and the notes will merge nicely in layered mode. Is there a way to do this? I've searched all of the menus and help files and can't find that option. Basically, I can hide the note head, or the entire stem and flag (by making the height 0), but I can't seem to hide just the flag. It's a lot of work fidgeting with stem heights to make them line up exactly, when it would be much simpler just to hide the flags I don't want to see.
If this isn't an option currently, I would say it'd be a great new feature, don't you think?
But I take your point, it seems that Eric forgot to enable them at the bottom of the pages (they are on in the tutorial)