Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: Increasing the gaps between some lines of music (but not all) (Read 6136 times) previous topic - next topic

Increasing the gaps between some lines of music (but not all)

Hi

I have three tunes, which are played as a set, ie Tune 1 leads into Tune 2 which leads into Tune 3 - all without a break.

I would like to make it clear on the final printout that (although the tunes are to be played without a break) they are in fact three distinct tunes.  I have already forced a system break at the beginning of each tune, so they each start at the beginning of a new line.  And I have entered the name of each tune as text just above the beginning of its stave.  So in print preview I now have three lines of Tune 1, then three lines of Tune 2 followed by 3 lines of Tune 3.

Is it possible to increase the size of the gap between lines 3 and 4 of music, and also between lines 6 and 7, but keeping the normal size gaps between the other lines of music?

Re: Increasing the gaps between some lines of music (but not all)

Reply #1 –
You can't do it.  What you can do, however, is cause there to be a full staff with nothing in it to appear between the end of one tune and the beginning of the next.

To do this, just go to the beginning of each new tune.  Just before the key signature, add 2 ordinary bar lines.  Set each one to force a system break.  Then add a whole rest between them, and make it invisible.

You won't get empty space, but you will at least get a visual separation between the numbers.  It's sort of equivalent to leaving space between pieces handwritten on ordinary score paper.

To do more than that, you can copy your chart three times as an image from the print preview screen into a graphics program, crop each image so you have three distinct pictures to paste into your word processor, and print from there.

Re: Increasing the gaps between some lines of music (but not all)

Reply #2 –
Thanks, David.  Two answers for the price of one!  Great.

Re: Increasing the gaps between some lines of music (but not all)

Reply #3 –
You're welcome, Jane.  I just thought of one more thing you could try.

Instead of fiddling with the graphics, just photocopy the printed page, using pieces of white paper to mask the unwanted blank lines.

Re: Increasing the gaps between some lines of music (but not all)

Reply #4 –
Set one of your highlight colors to white, insert text from a dingbat font (a bunch of squares/rectangles), making it large enough to cover the whole staff from left to right and top to bottom.  Center align the text, set it to "at next note/bar line" and place it to the left of your title (which it also set to "at next note/bar line").
Typed this very fast - excuse if there are booboos.

Re: Increasing the gaps between some lines of music (but not all)

Reply #5 –
Thank you both David and Gary for more workaround ideas.  I'll try working through Gary's suggestion very slowly step-by-step.  (I haven't used a dingbat font before or colours.)  And if I fail at that, I'll do the blank-out photocopy method.  Thank you both again.

Re: Increasing the gaps between some lines of music (but not all)

Reply #6 –
I've been using Gary's method for some time now.
I like it because there is less ink usage, less time in the print process, and less [abbr=I just made up that word...]afterprocessing[/abbr].
 

Re: Increasing the gaps between some lines of music (but not all)

Reply #7 –
I like Gary's idea too, but when I tried it, I couldn't find a font that doesn't leave a small space between each pair of white squares.  This left me with a number of stacked line segments across the otherwise whited out blank line.

Gary, is there a way to overcome this?

Re: Increasing the gaps between some lines of music (but not all)

Reply #8 –
Two ways to overcome this.
  • Have two sets of squares, one with a space at the end to offset it from the other one.
  • Use a [abbr=I've had to create one]font[/abbr] in which the square is [abbr=I know, it seems like an oxymoron, but if you've ever edited/created fonts, you know what I'm talking about.]wider than the space it takes up[/abbr], so that the squares overlap.
The 2nd method has less clutter, and is quicker and easier.

Re: Increasing the gaps between some lines of music (but not all)

Reply #9 –
If you have it, try Webdings "g" set at about 133% of the staff font size.
Registered user since 1996