Applying house style to "foreign" files

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mknoll
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Post by mknoll » Mon Apr 17, 2017 12:43 am

I'm about to begin a project where I will be working with 32 medium-sized files created by someone else. Much will need to be changed to get them into our house style and I would like to query the collective wisdom here about the best way to go about this.

I plan to set up a template with as many options as possible set according to house style and then copy the music from the supplied files. I assume that this will take care of most page layout and document option decisions such as page size, percentages, line thickness, lyric alignment and justification, and other document-specific items such as keyboard shortcuts.

But what about things like libraries, text fonts, tie and slur settings? These will carry over from the supplied files and any defaults in the template that are different will only apply to new items. The existing items won't automatically assume the new defaults. It looks like Jan Angermüller's House Style Changer plugin will take care of some of these things when it's available, but are there any other plug-ins currently available that could change a lot of parameters at once and apply them to existing items?

The orchestration will vary among the pieces, but I know already that I want to swap the score order position of the bottom two instruments in all of the files. Is there any way to automate something like that?

I've done all of this by hand a few times on single files and I know what a pain it is to get everything swapped over, and the thought of setting each parameter individually for 32 files seems a bit overwhelming. How have other folks handled this situation?

Thanks in advance.

Mark


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N Grossingink
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Post by N Grossingink » Mon Apr 17, 2017 11:35 am

Make sure you have your desired Expression Categories set up in the template you are designing. When you copy a file into the template, all of the expressions will be moved to the "Miscellaneous" category. Move them from there to your custom categories and the fonts, styles, sizes and positioning will automatically be changed to what you have specified in your categories.

If your slur and tie settings are set properly in your template, what you copy in will assume these new settings.

N.
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Peter Thomsen
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Post by Peter Thomsen » Mon Apr 17, 2017 2:32 pm

N Grossingink wrote:… When you copy a file into the template, all of the expressions will be moved to the "Miscellaneous" category. Move them from there to your custom categories and the fonts, styles, sizes and positioning will automatically be changed to what you have specified in your categories …
They may not “automatically” be changed.
You may have to use the pop up menu Reset to Category, and choose “Fonts & Positioning”.
But you do not have to reset the expressions one at a time - you can select them all, and reset all the selected expressions “at one fell swoop”.
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BuonTempi
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Post by BuonTempi » Mon Apr 17, 2017 4:12 pm

mknoll wrote:But what about things like libraries, text fonts, tie and slur settings? These will carry over from the supplied files and any defaults in the template that are different will only apply to new items. The existing items won't automatically assume the new defaults. It looks like Jan Angermüller's House Style Changer plugin will take care of some of these things when it's available, but are there any other plug-ins currently available that could change a lot of parameters at once and apply them to existing items?
I think I'm right in saying that if you copy music from one document to another, the options and settings in the receiving document will usually still apply, except for manual interventions. Even if not, ties and slur settings can be loaded in a library and the changes will apply (as said, manual adjustments to individual slurs will be retained).
Only those items marked with an asterisk in Document Options (usually just font settings) apply to subsequent items only.

I regularly update older documents with my improved, up-to-date settings by loading in Libraries. This changes all document options, including ties, and Slur settings.

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