I have a large-ish collection of song sheets, for guitar, created in several programmes other than Sibelius. Attached is a screenshot of the title of oneI have, created in Textedit on my iMac (OSX 10.6.8).
If Sibelius can create these sorts of sheets, I'd like to learn how to do so. All I do with Sibelius is write drum charts for my students and myself, as a result of which I have a very limited knowledge and experience of the softwares full capabilities!
Anyway, as well as wanting to know if Sibelius can create such song sheets, my primary and original reason for posting today is to ascertain how to create characters for sharps and flats, etc, in a non-Sibleoius document, either using a Sibelius font, or, even better, using a more common everyday typeface.
I was able to find, using the Mac app Fontbook, that Opus Roman Chords Regular has the symbols I'm after: z = natural, x = sharp. And I can see in Fontbook that there's a flat symbol, but - even after going through the whole keyboard several times - I can't locate a key command that will give me the symbol for a flat!
I have to say that I'm finding these Sibelius fonts to be a right pain in the derrière!
I've now found that the flat can be obtained in Opus Roman Chords Regular, by typing the 'y' character. But, unlike most fonts on my Mac, I cannot actually select the character once typed, to re-size it, etc. Trying to mouse-over it will not produce the usual blue selection highlight I.e. the font seems to occupy no space!?
And just using the font as supplied by Siblelus, it looks awful (see attached pic).
If anyone reads this, they may thinks I'm being fussy, but what I want is not the ugly looking Sibelius font version at the top of the attached pic, but the far better looking lower one, which I had to create using Photoshop!!!!
Can anyone tell me where or how I can access simple and straightforward characters or the accidentals that don't involve all this arsing about? It'd be much appreciated!
The symbols you want are all in the simple "Opus" font. But they will be at strange code-points: these fonts were not intended for use in any application other than a score-writing application.
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Sibelius 8/7.5.1/7.1.3/6.2/5.2.5, PhotoScore Ult 8.0.3, Dolet 6.4 for Sibelius, Windows 7 32-bit SP1 4GB, Windows 8.1 64-bit 16GB.
Well... after literally two hours or more, pratting about, I finally found that simply typing the 'b' character in Opus PlainChords Regular gave me a satisfactory result, without even needing to resize or add spaces ... at least in this instance (where I only need flats)... Phew! What a palaver!
I'd still like to know what font, if any (Sibelius or otherwise) will give me sharps, flats and naturals - without a lot of fuss!
How you get those codes into your word-processor depends on the operating system and word-processor concerned.
If you are looking for solutions where the code-points are accessible as normal characters, then use font "Opus Chords" at the following code-points:
hexadecimal 00a8 (DIARESIS) for flat symbol;
hexadecimal 00a9 (COPYRIGHT SIGN) for sharp symbol;
hexadecimal 00aa (FEMININE ORDINAL INDICATOR) for natural symbol;
hexadecimal 00ab (LEFT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK) for double-sharp symbol;
hexadecimal 00ac (NOT SIGN) for double-flat symbol.
But please note that neither of the above solutions will work if you send the word-processed document to anyone who does not have the Sibelius fonts installed.
But if your question was really not about the Sibelius fonts, but how to include musical symbols in word-processed text, then you should not use the Sibelius fonts at all, but use the Unicode code-points allocated to musical symbols, which are present in many widely-used normal text fonts. These are:
U+266D MUSIC FLAT SIGN (example: ♭)
U+266E MUSIC NATURAL SIGN (example: ♮)
U+266F MUSIC SHARP SIGN (example: ♯)
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Sibelius 8/7.5.1/7.1.3/6.2/5.2.5, PhotoScore Ult 8.0.3, Dolet 6.4 for Sibelius, Windows 7 32-bit SP1 4GB, Windows 8.1 64-bit 16GB.
Posted by Robin Walker - 23 Jul 14:27
If you are looking for solutions where the code-points are accessible as normal characters, then use font "Opus Chords" at the following code-points:
hexadecimal 00a8 (DIARESIS) for flat symbol;
hexadecimal 00a9 (COPYRIGHT SIGN) for sharp symbol;
hexadecimal 00aa (FEMININE ORDINAL INDICATOR) for natural symbol;
hexadecimal 00ab (LEFT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK) for double-sharp symbol;
hexadecimal 00ac (NOT SIGN) for double-flat symbol.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I've no idea how you type hex numbers into text (maybe someone could enlighten me). But if you translate these into decimal, the above characters can be typed (in Windows at least) as Alt/0168 thru' Alt/0172.
There are some music fonts available that are intended for use in text documents, and you may have better luck using them. The Bach font was designed that way, and there are probably others.
The heights of characters in the Sibelius music fonts are awkward to use in text documents.
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Bob
An experienced user of Sibelius. Sib 1.2 - 7.5, Windows 7 Pro SP 1 64 bit, 8 G RAM. Year 2015.
I came across the issue of the character height in an instrument list on blank page e.g.
2 Flutes
2 Oboes
2 Bb Clarinets.
If you use the flat symbol it moves the line down to accommodate the extra height needed. I haven't found a way round it.
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Roy Moore
London UK (2015)
Sib 7.5,8.0-Win 7 pro x64 8gb ram,512gb SSD Audiophile 2496
Laptop Win 8.1-32gb ram 512 ssd 750 hd
EW Goliath, EWQLSO platinum, Hollywood Strings Gold, QL Solo Violin, Note Performer
If you delete Bb in Clarinets and Trumpets the spacing returns to normal
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Roy Moore
London UK (2015)
Sib 7.5,8.0-Win 7 pro x64 8gb ram,512gb SSD Audiophile 2496
Laptop Win 8.1-32gb ram 512 ssd 750 hd
EW Goliath, EWQLSO platinum, Hollywood Strings Gold, QL Solo Violin, Note Performer
The fact that the line spacing difference is so obvious seems to be related to the use of Norfolk fonts. It is less noticeable with Opus fonts, though not entirely absent. This is one of the downsides of mixing different fonts in one line: the font metrics differ.
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Sibelius 8/7.5.1/7.1.3/6.2/5.2.5, PhotoScore Ult 8.0.3, Dolet 6.4 for Sibelius, Windows 7 32-bit SP1 4GB, Windows 8.1 64-bit 16GB.
My experience is different - attached same page using TNR + opus symbol and the effect is more noticeable. There is more space below as well as above.
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Roy Moore
London UK (2015)
Sib 7.5,8.0-Win 7 pro x64 8gb ram,512gb SSD Audiophile 2496
Laptop Win 8.1-32gb ram 512 ssd 750 hd
EW Goliath, EWQLSO platinum, Hollywood Strings Gold, QL Solo Violin, Note Performer
Thanks guys, I might try and install Bach (if it's a Mac compatible font?). But for the present the 'b' key in Opus PlainChords Regular is giving me a usable flat symbol, so that's meeting my current needs. The hex-code for the keys is a bit too much for my basic levels of tech-savvy! Regards, Sebastian.
Thanx for the link, Robin. Very complicated for me tho'. Fortunately I still have my old Acorn computer user guide. This has a 16x16 table of characters showing hex numbers and decimal equivalents. I use 4-digit decimal with the Alt key, committing the well used ones to memory.
I had a suggestion to try the flat symbol from the Bravura Text Font, re-sized to match.
The Bravura Flat symbol is located at U+266D and at 10pt matches fine with Plantin MT STD 12pt.
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Roy Moore
London UK (2015)
Sib 7.5,8.0-Win 7 pro x64 8gb ram,512gb SSD Audiophile 2496
Laptop Win 8.1-32gb ram 512 ssd 750 hd
EW Goliath, EWQLSO platinum, Hollywood Strings Gold, QL Solo Violin, Note Performer
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