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Topic: fit to page (Read 9431 times) previous topic - next topic

fit to page

would be a really groovy feature in page setup options.
especially for my two or more page single part printouts - i would love that soooo much. just divide the height available on the page (in points) by the height of the staff, then divide up the extra space by the number of staves (-1) and add it between each stave.

Re: fit to page

Reply #1 –
Another good idea!

I had considered suggesting letting NWC pick a point size to fill the pages. Ah Choo's idea gets around the problem of shifting the breaks in the stave as the size changes.

You could end up with really spaced out music - Groovy, Man! ;)

Re: fit to page

Reply #2 –
I strongly agree.

Moreover, besides the "force system break", it would be great to have a "disallow system break" option, so that the "fit to page" doesn't place a break at a place where it would make the reading difficult...

Re: fit to page

Reply #3 –
I find fit to page an *extremely* attractive idea. :-)

Re: fit to page

Reply #4 –
I do not see what you wish to achieve.
It seems to me that NWC already see how many staves it can put in a page and share the remaining vertical space to put it between staves.
I prefer a "fit to page" function that choose the best compromise between font and staff sizes and put my piece in 1 2 or the number of page I have entered as a parameter...
But this is probably a different function.

Re: fit to page

Reply #5 –
I would like a feature for "Fit to # of pages" because I am forever re-arranging praise music for the guitarists/bassist in my praise team to fit on 2-3 pages of music (and still be legible).  They don't have the luxury of being able to turn pages so I condense the piano/vocal version to fit their stands.

It takes me less time to input a song than it does to fiddle with all the fonts, margins, staves, force bar breaks etc.

Fit to # of Pages would be a heaven-sent feature!

:)

Re: fit to page

Reply #6 –
It would be a handy feature, but possible very difficult to implement! Certainly, it is not a common feature of other applications. When you print from (say) MS Word, IE, Mozilla, or any number of others, can you do it?

Re: fit to page

Reply #7 –
WordPerfect has this feature.  I don't have MS Word, so I can't speak for it.

Re: fit to page

Reply #8 –
But MS Excel certainly does have it.

Re: fit to page

Reply #9 –
As far as I can tell, neither MS Word (circa 98) nor Open Office 1.1.4 have this feature.

We're not talking about fitting page layout to page size, but rather forcing dimensions, forcing page breaks, and re-numbering pages so that the entire document fits to a pre-defined number of pages. Not simple!

Re: fit to page

Reply #10 –
I think NWC is best thought of as a word processor for music. It does an excellent job of getting notation in. Its defaults work well.

However layout is another problem. It needs a desktop publishing program to handle to handle regular non-music work. If the layout task is separated from the inputting notation it becomes easier as one program doesn't have to be twisted to be all things to all people. I have seen it that done in the early days. It was not uncommon to find word processisng being done in a spreadsheet.

We do not yet have a separate layout program for NWC and we have have to take the output from the copy function or print to PDF files, convert and use those. Despite that, that is very doable. By breaking up the job into the two logical parts it is possble to get very good layouts with edits.

My usual working method is to drop the pages into Pagemaker and if there is a change of texture where I need to change the number of staves I will copy the file and force a pagebreak by inserting garbage text so that the new page has the desired system at the top. Sometimes I only need the one system. This way they can be run on as needed. If there are difficulties of space I may print to a PDF and extract the page as  600dpi bitmap and trim that as needed, save it as a TIFF and the use it. The ability to hide staves is very useful.

Re: fit to page

Reply #11 –
Are you telling me that NWC can't fit the music on the pages without leaving empty spaces?

I always try setting the margins until it fits the page. But there is no way that it would fit the entire last page without an empty space. If the margins get too big the last measure comes on the next page.  But sometimes I get lucky.

So is there a feature to fit this? Sibelius can, because another transcriber uses that program and his works always looks professional.

Re: fit to page

Reply #12 –
I've never had much luck tweaking the margins.  The easiest way to fill a page or a second page is to adjust the page setup to use a larger or smaller staff size, or to adjust the vertical size of the staff, and finally, experiment with forced system breaks .  A staff size of 12 is perfectly adequate for a band, even one of older people who need glasses.

I generally fill one or two sheets of paper with each band part, and generally don't have too much white space at the end.

Re: fit to page

Reply #13 –
12 is really small!

To me the normal staff size of normal editions is 19 or 21. Mostly 21.

And thanks, I never thought about the force system break thing. It really comes in handy.

Re: fit to page

Reply #14 –
It happens too often: 4 pages to print, but there is this last bar that is orphaned on page 5. Fiddling and tweaking will help, but it would be fan-tas-tic if tasks like this could be automated.
For me, it does not have to be 'well, here are 10 pages, now shrink them to 4' or anything exotic like that; it's the adjustment like
- 'well, the page is nearly full, space it out just a bit',  or
- 'get that last bar in line with the rest'.

Re: fit to page

Reply #15 –
https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=1498.msg33861#msg33861 there is this last bar that is orphaned on page 5

Usually, the last bar is a whole note (or chord). Try making it a RestChord with an eighth rest. Experiment with the rest position until it is well above or below the staff and then use a little "digital white-out" to obliterate the rest. Then use some text spaces centered at next note/bar and preserve width to make the measure as wide as you like.  This works with any whole note measure and can often shorten a song to save a page.  The rests do not affect playback or midi export.

To save even more space, tie an invisible grace note with accidentals to you visible note. Then add the accidental(s) as text. In a measure with lots of notes this often is the difference between getting 1 measure on a line (ugh!) and 2.  This will also make the accidental "persistent", i.e., impervious to audit accidentals, but wrong if you transpose staff.

If you would like some examples, I can post some either to the NWC2 forum or the newsgroup.

HTH
Registered user since 1996

Re: fit to page

Reply #16 –
An example in the newsgroup or on the NWC2 forum would help.
I find that NWC users are The Masters Of The Workaround. Good, very good! NWC is so flexible that there is nearly always an answer to a question that begins with 'Can I ...?'

The fun of the workaround is this: it serves as a temporary solution, AND if many of us use it, it acts as a Reasonable Request. If (nearly) everybody uses the same workaround, it might be time to add a little extra to the program.
 

Re: fit to page

Reply #17 –
Albert, what type of music do you write?  The parts I extract from scores are read by older players in my rehearsal/ repertory Strictly Ellington band.  Most of us are over 50, some extremely so.

At our ages, eyesight "ain't what it used to be,"  yet nobody has complained that size 12 is too small.  I use a smaller font to save paper.  Not so much for conversationalism, but more to avoid too many page turns and parts that are too long (4 pages doesn't cut it on a wire music stand; 10 pages won't fit well on a piano).

If you like a larger font, fair enough. It's your music, so you get to choose!