how to deal with orphan notes on a staff stretching to the right margin

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how to deal with orphan notes on a staff stretching to the right margin

2021-08-06 06:33 pm

I am trying to notate a course method for violin and am having problems with orphan lines. I read a few posts suggesting changing the note font size in page setup or changing the boundaries. There is only so much that I can do with the controls that were mentioned.
One area is corrected and another not. As long as the end of a staff is married to the right margin, I am not sure how to avoid a few notes spread across a whole staff line. In the pic I am attaching, I force system breaks and change boundaries to allow for spacing and text. But as you can see, certain lines that end with a few notes become distorted and stretched. I am hoping there is a command to deal with this rather than massaging the note and staff boundaries to negate orphans. Staves 3 and 6 are affected and changing the note font size or the boundaries fixes a couple and messes with others. Unless something can be applied that affects only a particular system then a change to the whole document seems to have its pros and cons. Is it necessary for all staff lines to end against the right margin or can they be made to truncate early?

PB

Re: how to deal with orphan notes on a staff stretching to the right margin

Reply #1 – 2021-08-06 09:33 pm

First, in general, is not really a good idea to write independent pieces in a single score and then try to present them "separately enough". A better way is to write each piece separately and then paste the resulting images or WMFs into e.g. a Microsoft Word "master document". Yes, the workflow is not nice - with every change in your music, you must copy the resulting score into the master document, which might then need reformatting (I don't know whether one could include "linked images" in MS Word, so that the master document is updated automatically ...).

If you really want to put separate pieces into one NWC score, you can use "Gaps" - this is a sub-type of the "Boundary" object, which is created via Insert->Boundary Change or keyboard shortcut ]. At the bottom, you find the "Gap" option. What I often do, is to add a Gap and then a Transparent Bar with "Force System Break" enabled; by playing with the Gap's width, you can format the "orphan line" to a nice note spacing. But it's some trial and error ...

For a somewhat intricate example of such a score, see the attached (German) "Liturgieblatt", which I wrote for my church services.

H.M.

Re: how to deal with orphan notes on a staff stretching to the right margin

Reply #2 – 2021-08-06 09:47 pm

Tsoilihoi,

Only the last line in a score can stop before the end of the line if you toggle the Page Setup Option "Extend last system.

Other lines will stretch if the next bar line has the "force system break" flag.
I don't think there is an automatic solution, but you can of course make manual modifications to change the layout.

Apart from hmmueller's solution, you can achieve a decent result by playing with system breaks (on visible or on - added - invisible bar lines).

In your example I think you have already system breaks at the end of measure 35 and at the end of measure 49. In this case I would try to add system breaks on some other bar lines as well. For instance after measure 26 (the text 43211234 would then start at the beginning of the next line) and also after measure 32 (the text Play the above... would then also start line "three").

Also 2 or 3 measures in line "five" should move to line "six", so another system break after measure 45 or 46 is needed. Depending on this you should move 1 or 2 measures from line "four" to line "five".

It is best to do this kind of modification at the very last moment, because if you change the margins of font size later, you may be forced to reorder your system breaks again.

Bart

Re: how to deal with orphan notes on a staff stretching to the right margin

Reply #3 – 2021-08-06 11:08 pm

I would put a system break at the end of bars 40 and 45.
Actually, in more detail, there should be a transparent barline added after the 4/4 time signature and the system break added there instead of the barline at the end of 40. Then another 4/4 should be added after the transparent barline so the 4/4 is repeated at the start of the next system.

This would give you 2 systems of 5 bars and one of 4.