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Lyrics text size

Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2020 8:17 am
by ICBSprod 22-12
Hi!

Almost everywhere in Finale I can set text size with comma separated values; ex: 10,5
But Lyrics text does not allow me to do that. Any workaround or plugins that can help me with that?

Normally I do not need so spesific sizes, but now I am working on a project where I have a layout, that demands the Lyric to be as small as possible, but NOT TOO small. I am using the Font: Palatino Linotype. The size 10 is too small, the size 11 gives me somewhat trouble with the spacing, and because of that, also the readability. In this particular case I desperately need Finale to give me the size of 10,5 in the Lyrics.
The music is going to fit into the size of an A5 booklet layout style, and it is also going be published.
The font type used in the rest of the booklet, is Palatino, so I need to keep that font in Finale too.

I have to add that I have worked a lot with resizing the music up and down in combination with different sizes of the lyrics, both fixed and not. I can not reduce the music more than I have it now, if so, it will not look good.

Any suggestions?
Børge
Norway

Re: Lyrics text size

Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2020 12:12 pm
by Peter Thomsen
ICBSprod 22-12 wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 8:17 am
… Almost everywhere in Finale I can set text size with comma separated values; ex: 10,5 …
Indeed you can type a decimal value for font size, like e. g. 10,5pt.
But it does not work.
Finale will change the font size from 10,5p to 10pt.

Nowhere in Finale you can get a decimal font size, sorry.

This is one of Finale’s well known shortcomings.
For years users have requested the option of decimal font sizes.
Perhaps we will get decimal font sizes some day …

As a workaround (lots of work!) you could set double values everywhere:
With double Page Side length/width, and everything doubled - staff line thickness, barline thickness, stem thickness &c.
And font size 21pt for the Lyrics.

Then, “print” to PDF.

Open the PDF.
Again, “print” the PDF to PDF, but this time scale 50% down, with half Page Side length/width.

Re: Lyrics text size

Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2020 1:21 pm
by Carloshaz
Does this workaround always work or is it just for this particular case?

Re: Lyrics text size

Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2020 2:06 pm
by ICBSprod 22-12
Thanks!

To Carloshaz: Yes, as far as I can understand, this solution will work in every case, not just this particular one.

An obvious solution though...., but I do not think I want to go down that road. Since all my finaledocuments are almost finished, just some final adjustments needs to be done, that means I have to redesign every one of them (50). I can not be sure I actually will be able to remember to change all finale elements in every document. Another option is to build a new template and do all the work over again
......

It comes to my mind that it will probably be easier to drop the lyrics in Finale, and try to put it "on top of" the pdf files in Indesign.



Børge

Re: Lyrics text size

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2020 11:34 pm
by wessmusic
I would suggest something simple. This action requires very basic knowledge of font creation.
If you do not have at you disposal FontLab Studio, there are many free options.
All you need is to scale the so called UPM – Unit Per eM – the size of the grid on which all glyph coordinates are defined.
TTF fonts are set (usually) to 2048 UPM.
OTF (Type 1) to 1000 UPM.

In order to get exactly 10.5 p you need to scale down the UPM with ca. 5%.
This will be true only for the specific font size.
For instance: if you wish to use 10.5 p. you'll need to scale the TTF's UPM from default 2048 to 1955.
(or form 1000 to 955 UPM for Type 1).
At the end of this procedure you have to save the font under different name.
In this scenario if you apply in Finale 11p (using the newly edited font) the result will be exactly 10.5 p.

The whole process takes less than 5 minutes, inc. installing the new font and the necessary substitution within Finale file(s).
Note, that the aforementioned method is useful only for the so called "fix fonts".

Best,
Wess