Manual Positioning of Text in the Title Area

I must point out that there is a lot of approximation going on, and the
complexity of the thing should make it clear just how much room for error
there is. In short, get someone with eyes to do this, it's much easier.

There are a lot of things to do and they're spread out across several
different dialogs. There is a certain logic to it, but it isn't immediately
apparent.

1. In the document set up dialog, move the top staff margin to make room
before you start.

This is the distance between the top line of the top most staff and the top
page margin. Increasing it pushes the top staff down, and all the other
staves with it. It is measured in millimetres, inches, or points, depending
on which radio button you choose. For what you're about to do, it is best to
choose points. All will become clear. Before going on, set the top staff
margin to a far bigger number than is necessary. This will make sure that
you've got room to move everything around. You then reset it at the end to
move everything up into the ideal position. For now, set it to 144 points (2 inches).

2. Calculate the space height

The positions of text items is stated as the number of spaces away from the
centre line of the staff. A space is the distance between two adjacent lines
on the staff. Since the staff height refers to a five line staff, which has
four spaces in it, the space height can be calculated by dividing the staff
height by 4. A typical space height is 5pt, this is with a staff height of
20pt (7mm).

3. Vertically position the text items

Tempo text has a default position of 3 spaces above the middle line. This is
set in the default positions dialog (not the edit text style dialog as you
might expect). If there is nothing above the top line of the top staff, this
will be fine. However, if there was a note of C6 (second line above), the
tempo text will need moving up to a higher position. A safe place would be 6
spaces away from the middle. You can do this by selecting the tempo text and
pressing Ctrl+UpArrow three times. Unfortunately, you will not be told the
vertical off-set because the properties is only displaying 0 in the y
coordinate box.

4. Top edge of text

Before positioning the composers name you need to know where the top edge of
the tempo text is. You do this by converting the point size of the tempo
text font into line spaces and adding it to the vertical off-set of the
tempo text.

The font size is found in the edit text style dialog. Select tempo and then
press edit. The first page of the dialog that opens shows the point size.
The first size box is for the full size and the second for the parts.

If the space is 5pt and the font size is 13pt, the size in spaces is 13/5 =
2.6. So, the top of the tempo text is the vertical off-set + the height in
spaces. 6 + 2.6 = 8.6.

Add a line space for good clearance and this gives you the vertical off-set
of the composer text. You can either change the default position or find the
existing default position and use the arrow keys to push it up to the new
position. In this case, 10 spaces should be safe.

You now have to repeat the process for the title text. In brief.
(a) Composer text is 11pt. 11 / 5 == 2.2 spaces.
(b) Top of composer text is 10 + 2.2 = 12.2.
(c) Position title text at 13 spaces (0.8 spaces for clearance.

5. Fix the top staff margin.

The top staff margin has to be set so that there is enough room for all of
the above. The title text was positioned at 13 spaces above the middle line.
This is 11 spaces above the top line of the top staff (2 spaces for the
fourth and fifth lines). However, the title text is 22pt (4.4 spaces) and
this needs to be considered. So finally, the top of the title is 11+4.4 =
15.4 spaces above the top line of the top staff. For safety, let's call it
16 spaces.

The top staff margin is stated in points so we need to convert it. 16 *5 =
80pt.

If you think this looks like a lot, 80 pt is about 1.1 inches.

Simple isn't it!

Dan Rugman