'Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection - can I do it in Sibelius, or do I need a page layout app?'

Messages in this thread

Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection - can... - Bob K, 08 Apr 05:13PM
     Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Laurence Payne, 08 Apr 06:20PM
         Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Bob K, 08 Apr 07:10PM
             Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Laurence Payne, 08 Apr 07:39PM
                 Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Bob K, 08 Apr 08:38PM
                     Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Laurence Payne, 08 Apr 08:55PM
                         Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Kai Struck, 09 Apr 11:49AM
                             Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Bob K, 10 Apr 05:37PM
                                 Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Laurence Payne, 10 Apr 06:39PM
                                     Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Bob K, 10 Apr 07:20PM
                                         Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Bob K, 11 Apr 12:05AM

Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection - can I do it in Sibelius, or do I need a page layout app?
Posted by Bob K - 08 Apr 05:13PM
I need to create a print-ready PDF of a collection of original music. The pieces are currently in separate Sibelius 7.5 files. The only non-music pages will be a front cover, back cover, title page and table of contents.

What I’m wondering is: Does it make sense to do the layout entirely in Sibelius 7.5? And if not, is there an inexpensive page-layout application (for Mac OS 10.10 Yosemite) that would do the job of combining all the songs and adding page numbers?

PLEASE only respond to this thread if you’ve actually done this type of project (or something similar) before.

I realize that I can create blank pages in Sibelius for the non-music content, and then paste in that content as images created in another application like a word-processor or illustration app.

The problem is that copying/pasting all the songs into a single Sibelius document would introduce issues like:

1. Having different songs in different keys - Would hiding the cautionary accidentals suffice, or would that leave an awkward blank space (occupied by the hidden accidentals)?

2. Formatting the first page of each new song - Is it possible to apply a ‘first page’ layout to the first page of each song? Or would I have to create that layout on manually (except for the first song)?

I’m guessing I’d have to do that manually, because by default Sibelius uses wildcards for Song Title and copyright info, both of which would vary per song.

Since I already have rough-draft PDFs of the songs, I tried assembling them in Preview, PDFpen Pro 7, and Apple’s Pages. It seems that Pages might be able to do what I need, but the latest version has made page layout functionality less-than-intuitive, and know little about page layout to begin with.

Thanks in advance!

--
Bob K
Sibelius 7.51, Mac Pro 8-Core 2.26 GHz 'Nehalem', 16 GB RAM, OS 10.10.2
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Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection - can I do it in Sibelius, or do I need a page layout app?
Posted by Laurence Payne - 08 Apr 06:20PM
The issues with cautionary key-signatures etc. are easy to solve.

Sibelius 7.5 handles text and graphics pretty well. Text can be pasted into blank pages, placing a graphic is as easy as simply dragging it onto the Sibelius page.

The main complication with concatenating a series of sib files arises if they do not all have the same basic structure - the same number of staves containing the same instruments in the same order.

If you do decide to concatenate at PDF level rather than within Sibelius, you may find it easier to insert suitable Page Number Changes in each score before exporting the PDFs.
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Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection - can I do it in Sibelius, or do I need a page layout app?
Posted by Bob K - 08 Apr 07:10PM (edited 08 Apr 07:14PM)
Fortunately, all the files only use piano. Some are treble clef only (lead sheets) and some are grand staff, so 'hide empty staves' should take care of that.

>The issues with cautionary key-signatures etc. are easy to solve.

How?

And what about titles and copyright info? After the first song, will I need to format all that manually on the first page of each new song?

Thanks!
--
Bob K
Sibelius 7.51, Mac Pro 8-Core 2.26 GHz 'Nehalem', 16 GB RAM, OS 10.9.4
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Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection - can I do it in Sibelius, or do I need a page layout app?
Posted by Laurence Payne - 08 Apr 07:39PM (edited 08 Apr 07:40PM)
The joining of leadsheet and piano files will not be quite as straightforward as you anticipate. Only scores with the same number of staves can be appended. You could add an extra stave to each of the lead-sheet scores. Maybe better to add a pair of piano staves below the lead-sheets, a single stave above the piano scores.

For key signatures you hide the cautionary, then Reset Note Spacing to regain the space. For time signatures you re-create them with "allow cautionary" unticked. Or there's a Tidy Appended Scores plugin that automates most of what's needed:

http://www.sibeliusblog.com/tips/tidy-appended-scores-plug-in/

Titles etc. won't be a problem. They'll stay where they were, on the first page of each new piece.

I suggest that, rather than trying to pre-solve every possible problem, you have a go. Edit a couple of files to have the same stave structure - albeit some of them empty. "Append" is sitting in the File menu, awaiting your mouse-click!
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Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection - can I do it in Sibelius, or do I need a page layout app?
Posted by Bob K - 08 Apr 08:38PM
> The joining of leadsheet and piano files will not be quite as straightforward as you anticipate. Only scores with the same number of staves can be appended. You could add an extra stave to each of the lead-sheet scores. Maybe better to add a pair of piano staves below the lead-sheets, a single stave above the piano scores.
>
> For key signatures you hide the cautionary, then Reset Note Spacing to regain the space. For time signatures you re-create them with "allow cautionary" unticked. Or there's a Tidy Appended Scores plugin that automates most of what's needed:
>
> http://www.sibeliusblog.com/tips/tidy-appended-scores-plug-in/
>
> Titles etc. won't be a problem. They'll stay where they were, on the first page of each new piece.
>
> I suggest that, rather than trying to pre-solve every possible problem, you have a go. Edit a couple of files to have the same stave structure - albeit some of them empty. "Append" is sitting in the File menu, awaiting your mouse-click!

Thanks very much, Laurence! The plugin looks great, and I was not aware of the 'Append' command. Will give it a go.


--
Bob K
Sibelius 7.51, Mac Pro 8-Core 2.26 GHz 'Nehalem', 16 GB RAM, OS 10.9.4
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Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection - can I do it in Sibelius, or do I need a page layout app?
Posted by Laurence Payne - 08 Apr 08:55PM
> Thanks very much, Laurence! The plugin looks great, and I was not aware of the 'Append' command. Will give it a go.


Ah, right.

I suppose you COULD do it with System-select, Copy and Paste. But I think you'll find Append worth the trouble of conforming the individual files to have the same stave structure.
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Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection - can I do it in Sibelius, or do I need a page layout app?
Posted by Kai Struck - 09 Apr 11:49AM
In case you already have Libre or OpenOffice installed as Office suite you can have a look at:
http://www.sibelius.com/cgi-bin/helpcenter/chat/chat.pl?com=thread&start=672931&groupid=3&

It is tested on Windows and Linux and should work on OSX. I would be glad if someone could try it on OSX.
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Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection - can I do it in Sibelius, or do I need a page layout app?
Posted by Bob K - 10 Apr 05:37PM
@Laurence - I joined the files with the 'Append' command and used the 'Tidy Appended Score'. By the way, that plugin is included in Sibelius now and is mentioned in the Reference in the section on 'Append'.

One thing that the 'Tidy' plugin doesn't address is rehearsal marks. I need the rehearsal marks to start over at 'A' for each song.

You can choose 'Restart Sequence' when adding a new mark, but - unless I'm missing something - you can't apply that command to an existing mark, unfortunately.

At this point, my two main options are: 1) Resetting the rehearsal marks, and making a number of other formatting tweaks to the appended score; or 2) Tweaking the lead sheets of the individual songs and compiling them as pdfs or images in a page-layout application.

I'm glad I tried appending, but at this point I think option 2 will probably be faster and more flexible.
--
Bob K
Sibelius 7.51, Mac Pro 8-Core 2.26 GHz 'Nehalem', 16 GB RAM, OS 10.9.4
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Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection - can I do it in Sibelius, or do I need a page layout app?
Posted by Laurence Payne - 10 Apr 06:39PM
> One thing that the 'Tidy' plugin doesn't address is rehearsal marks. I need the rehearsal marks to start over at 'A' for each song.
>
> You can choose 'Restart Sequence' when adding a new mark, but - unless I'm missing something - you can't apply that command to an existing mark, unfortunately.
>

Erase the existing Rehearsal Mark. Create a new one at the same position, with the Restart Sequence option. All subsequent marks will automatically change to follow the new sequence.
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Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection - can I do it in Sibelius, or do I need a page layout app?
Posted by Bob K - 10 Apr 07:20PM
> Erase the existing Rehearsal Mark. Create a new one at the same position, with the Restart Sequence option. All subsequent marks will automatically change to follow the new sequence.

Fantastic! Thanks again Laurence!


--
Bob K
Sibelius 7.51, Mac Pro 8-Core 2.26 GHz 'Nehalem', 16 GB RAM, OS 10.9.4
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Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection - can I do it in Sibelius, or do I need a page layout app?
Posted by Bob K - 11 Apr 12:05AM
Another thing I hadn't considered is margins. Inner margins need to be a little larger to leave room for the coil binding, and since I'll be doing two-sided printing, I'll need mirrored page layouts. Sibelius handles all of this easily, so now I'm back to doing the layout in a single Sibelius file. So far, so good.


--
Bob K
Sibelius 7.51, Mac Pro 8-Core 2.26 GHz 'Nehalem', 16 GB RAM, OS 10.9.4
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Messages in this thread

Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection - can... - Bob K, 08 Apr 05:13PM
     Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Laurence Payne, 08 Apr 06:20PM
         Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Bob K, 08 Apr 07:10PM
             Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Laurence Payne, 08 Apr 07:39PM
                 Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Bob K, 08 Apr 08:38PM
                     Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Laurence Payne, 08 Apr 08:55PM
                         Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Kai Struck, 09 Apr 11:49AM
                             Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Bob K, 10 Apr 05:37PM
                                 Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Laurence Payne, 10 Apr 06:39PM
                                     Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Bob K, 10 Apr 07:20PM
                                         Re: Sib. 7.5: Page layout for song collection -... - Bob K, 11 Apr 12:05AM