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printing

7 August 99

Dear Sir or Maam,

I was wondering if there is a way to make the printed copy have some of the text printed in color. Most of my songs are hymns with multiple verses (sometimes many) and being able to have the third verse in red, for example, would help keep your eyes aligned to the proper area when singing. That way your eyes would not accidentally stray to an incorrect verse line as your eyes move down the page.

Re: printing

Reply #1 –
Not at the moment, David, nor is it possible to have different fonts for different verses e.g. italic for the middle verse. One for the wish list perhaps? All is not lost however - set the number of lyric lines to your total number of verses, but leave the non standard ones blank, export the final version into a publishing program and then add the missing verse(s) in whatever font or colour you wish. See also https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=645 , https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=642 , https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=591
Peter

Re: printing

Reply #2 –
Maybe is it simpler to export the *complete* work as Peter suggests it, and change the color of you lyrics in the separaet program --I know you can do it with Word (exporting pages as .WMF files, see preview), just double click into the picture, and select the elements you want to change color (Alas, you can't drag a box around them for multiple selection). Though this needs much memory to work, it works. But it is quite painful (I just tried it again) since you must click on each syllable, select the text, and change the color (but you can use Quick keys for this: {Home, Ctrl-End, Ctrl-D, Alt-C, R} in French version, I guess it's the same on US one, so macro recorder can help).

Finally, Peter's suggestion may be good (not to include the lyrics you want to colorize) but you'll have to place the lyrics yourself.

Haha! Last chance: I just retried once more, and finally it's less painful as I thought.
Once you have selected a syllable (and that's the hard part when objects overlap), use Ctrl-D to access properties, select the color (use the first letter of its name), strike Enter to valid; and then the TAB key will select the next item :-) :-)
So it will be a repetitive work, with no fiddling with the mouse!! Macro recorder will definitely help then. I just recorded a macro for it (the keys I gave just above) and it works fine. I'm using Word6, but I see no reason why it shouldn't work with newer versions (except that µ$ has strange policy about compatibility)

Hope this helps,
                            Dominique

Re: printing

Reply #3 –
Definitely a 'why didn't I think of that' answer, Dominique! Excellent solution, and I've taken it a bit further. I've plugged Serif's Page Plus on a number of occasions (see links in my earlier answer) because it correctly imports the NWC metafiles. So I tried its companion program, Draw Plus, to modify the lyric lines. (Copy and paste the metafile from preview, then <Arrange><Ungroup> to access individual items). And it works beautifully, with whole lines of text being selectable at once. The odd item goes funny, for example boxed bar numbers are filled in black, but selecting them and changing their fill to 'none' cures that one. There may be other minor glitches I haven't spotted, but I'm sure they'd be easily corrected. And of course with a metafile in a drawing package, now is the time to add those tricky hairpins and glissando marks!
Peter.

Re: printing

Reply #4 –
If you are editing a WMF object you should be able to select many syllables at a time by holding the shift key down while selecting them with the mouse. Then all the colors could be changed at once.

Re: printing

Reply #5 –
I'd like to; Word doesn't allow this, and PSP changes it into bitmap. Even PhotoShop doesn't recognize that vectoriel format (what a pity, btw!) So what do you use to edit a WMF file?
TIA,
      Mad

Re: printing

Reply #6 –
Sorry, I use word, I left out a very important step. I have done this a lot with MetaFiles and It is easy to leave things out that I take for granted.

When the WMF pictures are placed in Word they are grouped into sections. You can edit individual items in the section but cannot select multiple items. If you select the grouped section and issue the ungroup command then all the items in the group are split apart. They can then be multiply selected and edited a lot easier.

It appears that each staff is a grouping. I normally click on the beginning bar line of the staff. You know it is right when you see the resizing icons appear at the corners of the staff. Then you can do an ungroup command (I normally right click to get the pull down menu but I am sure there is another command to do the same thing). When done you can leave them un-grouped or select one item and issue a re-group command (again, I use the pull down menu) and all the items that were previously grouped will be put back together.

Grouping is useful for moving sub pictures around that were made from many primitives.

Hope this helps. It is terribly slow going in the picture editor until I get it ungrouped and then appears to speed up considerably.

Re: printing

Reply #7 –
Well, it looks like it lets you do everything on multiple selections except change the text (fonts, colors, sizes, etc).

Back to the drawing board.

Re: printing

Reply #8 –
Ok, this was bothering me so I tried it in Powerpoint 97. (Again, you have to ungroup the metafile). Powerpoint does allow you to multiple select (shift or cursor drag) and modify all the text qualities at once.

In fact, it was so easy to do in Powerpoint (and fast) that I may use it for a lot more of these.

Re: printing

Reply #9 –
Or (ref reply no. 7) back to the Draw Plus-ing board.