Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: Using Different Fonts with Insert: Text (Read 15356 times) previous topic - next topic

Using Different Fonts with Insert: Text

The ability to select different fonts for Insert: Text opens up many new possibilities. For example, you can download fonts that contain music symbols and insert any symbol you like into your score. Though these symbols have no effect on the MIDI playback of your score, if you are preparing printed scores for musicians to play or sing from, this can be extremely handy.

Here are some of the symbols I can now enter which I couldn't before: notes without stems (for chant), accidentals with parentheses (for clarity in ambiguous situations), quadruple piano or forte, double-whole notes and rests, percussion symbols like rolls and flams and the percussion clef, a dashed bar line, upside down fermatas, graphical glissando, and more. Your only limit is the fonts you can find.

Here's how it works: On the Page Setup dialog, Fonts tab, set one of the user-defined fonts to your music symbol font. Open Character Map (a Windows utility) so you can view the characters in the font and copy the one you want to the clipboard. In your score, place the insertion point where you want the symbol to go, then open the Text dialog. Insert your character from the clipboard into the text area (note -- on the text dialog it won't look like a music symbol, but maybe a letter or number or control code or extended character) and set the text font to your music symbol font. When you close the dialog, you'll find your symbol in the score.

You may have to play with the font size to make it fit into your score and look natural, but it's worth the effort.

Re: Using Different Fonts with Insert: Text

Reply #1 –
Editor's Note: Remember, if you need to share the *.nwc song file with someone, they will not be able to view the fonts you used unless they have the fonts installed on their computer.