Lyrics too close to barline

[yyzteacher]

In each measure, my lyrics often touch the left barline. (They rarely get too close to the right barline at the end of a measure.) I've looked under lyric options and document options but don't see a way to specify the minimum distance between a barline and lyrics. Does anyone know of a helpful tip? Thanks!

[Peter Thomsen]

Have you tried these settings?

[Bill Stevens]

Usually with lyrics the barline is only on the staff, not between the staves, so this wouldn't be a problem.

Staff Tool > Staff > Groups and Brackets > Add > Draw Barlines > Only On Staves.

::: Bill

[motet]

Which of those settings controls this, Peter?

I just finished 40 pages of secco recitative on a grand staff with the voice on top and figured bass on the bottom, with barlines between the staves. I used the default document options for lyrics. Occasionally a lyric was close to the barline, though never touching. I just moved it to the right manually in the Adjust Syllables mode of the Lyrics tools.

[Peter Thomsen]

Which of those settings controls this, Peter? …

I was referring to the settings in the red rectangle in my screen shot.

… I just finished 40 pages of secco recitative on a grand staff with the voice on top and figured bass on the bottom, with barlines between the staves. I used the default document options for lyrics. Occasionally a lyric was close to the barline, though never touching. I just moved it to the right manually in the Adjust Syllables mode of the Lyrics tools.

I would say that the setting
Others: Alignment Left
makes the bigger difference.

[motet]

Though it can crowd the words elsewhere. In my lyrics of 2,500 words I only needed to make a handful of manual adjustments to get words an aesthetic distance from a barline (there were no actual collisions), but each situation is difference.

[yyzteacher]

None of the solutions have helped (unless I'm misunderstanding). Much of my work involves laying out popular songs for piano, in which case I do have barlines through staves, and lyrics. I'm very often running into the problem in the attached image (note the word "might"). Still hopeful for any solutions!

[motet]

Did you try Peter's suggestion?

[Peter Thomsen]

Another solution:

Place the lyrics above the Grand Staff.

[motet]

Another option would be to increase "space before music," though that would affect non-lyric measures as well.

[motet]

Finally, as I said above, I used "Adjust syllables" in the lyric tool, which has the advantage of the words always being centered under the notes, though in my case not many needed adjusting.