Lengthening/Shortening notehead brackets

You can lengthen/shorten individual notehead brackets graphically to change their height, independently of your project-wide settings. You can do this for the current layout and frame chain only or for all layouts and frame chains.

Note

You can only lengthen/shorten round notehead brackets on single noteheads if they use the drawn curve, rather than the font glyph.

Prerequisite

  • Graphic Editing is selected in the Engrave toolbox.

  • You have chosen the appropriate property scope for local properties.

Procedure

  1. In Engrave mode, select one of the outer handles of the notehead brackets you want to lengthen/shorten.
    Tip

    You can show handles on all items, not just selected items, by choosing Engrave > Show Handles > Always. This can make it easier to select individual handles on multiple items.

  2. Move the handles in any of the following ways:

    • Press Alt/Opt-Up Arrow to move them upwards.

    • Press Alt/Opt-Down Arrow to move them downwards.

      Tip

      If you want to move handles by larger increments, you can press Ctrl/Cmd as well as the standard key command, for example, Ctrl/Cmd-Alt/Opt-Up Arrow.

    • Click and drag them upwards/downwards.

Result

The selected notehead brackets are lengthened/shortened graphically. If the property scope was set to Locally, this change only takes effect in the current layout and frame chain. This does not change the notes to which they apply.

If necessary, other nearby items, such as ties and slurs, automatically move to avoid collisions.

Tip

  • The following properties in the Bracketed Noteheads group of the Properties panel are activated automatically when you lengthen/shorten the corresponding notehead bracket.

    • L bracket extents controls the height of left notehead brackets. T moves their top handles, B moves their bottom handles.

    • R bracket extents controls the height of right notehead brackets. T moves their top handles, B moves their bottom handles.

    You can also use these properties to lengthen/shorten notehead brackets graphically by changing the values in the value fields.

    Deactivating the properties resets the selected notehead brackets to their default positions.

  • You can change how far all notehead brackets extend beyond notes project-wide on the Bracketed Noteheads page in Engrave > Engraving Options.