Resized staff and symbol sizes

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wess-music
Posts: 51
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 10:40

Re: Resized staff and symbol sizes

Post by wess-music »

Dear OCTO,

it is time to share with you and our colleagues the result of my last experiment which goal was to eliminate the lack of correspondence between small and normal staff elements when these both staves must be placed in one and the same page.

As a source file I used a piano reduction. Just for the test the "Left hand" was set to 5 mm (70% reduction) and the "Right hand" to 100% 7 mm hight (in 83% resized system by default).

The most important – as a music font I used a modified Maestro font where all glyphs are much much thinner than in a normal one.
Instead of using only Illustrator for this manipulation as usually I decided to find and use some free app. – "Inkscape".
IMO, the final VISUAL result is most important and this could be reached with any kind of software.

I will try to upload the files, but if there are limitations, I will contact you, OCTO to find how to illustrate this adventure.

Let's start from the beginning.
What we have on disposal:
01. Finale file – one system (scaled to 83% by default) with two staves – respectively 100% and 70% (ca.7 mm and ca.5 mm)
02. Customised font "MaestroLITE" with appropriate FAN. (Later I will upload all these files in case there is interest for further experiments in or society.)

The music as you can see from the attachment contains many grace notes and normal size on both staves, flags, articulation, dynamics.
Text font: Times New Roman (which is not one of my favourite): roman, bold and italic
12p scalable, 8pt fixed and ca.13-14 fixed for the tempo.
Two clefs: G and F, smart shapes instead of extended beams and so on.

03. Some very slide additional adjustment for flag and stem positions was made too.
When the file was ready and saved I went to "FILE menu/ Print " —>

04. "Command+P" and form bottom left pop-up "save as PostScript".

05. PS file was opened with "Preview" and saved as PDF.
(Acrobat Distiller can do the same but as far as I know, not every one of the colleges use Adobe software because there are many free alternatives with almost identical functions)

If the PDF file shell be opened in Illustrator the only solution is to convert the PS using AdobeDistiller, otherwise font oddity may appear when opened in Illustrator.

06. I will use this time both software – Illustrator and Inkscape.

07. INKSCAPE: File menu – 1. open .....PDF and then select which page from the PDF to visualise.

With "F2" select any kind of text object.
Right mouse button and go to "Select Same —> Object type"
All text and notes, articulation etc. are now selected.
Go to "fill and stroke" and select 100% black and 0.085 mm and "Round join" within "Stroke style" from the pop-up window.

08. Save... the week point of this software is that it saves only a single page.
Illustrator can save single pages within multipage PDF file.
_______

Now the question is why 0.085 mm but not something else. Well it is up to every one to experiment.
However, the laser Jet printers with resolution of 1200 DPI can print single line as 0.02116 mm.
This is actually nothing but to have a proper result it is better to have more solid line which will be the same for all – text and music elements even represented by different font sizes.
Thus works SCORE program. 0.085 is 4 x 0.02116 = 4 lines (or 2 lines on 600 DPI LJ)

I applied outline only to elements that are presented by fonts. The modified music font is really very thin. The stroke compensate the body of the glyphs but also adds some extra boldness to expression text, which was a subject of another treat here in this forum. In just one go everything looks fine.

Such manipulation takes about 2.00-2.30 min. pear page or even less.

There is another alternative – IMO more complicated – using Illustrator.
The result was almost the same and I think that the free software works faster and even some minor issues regarding font maintenance found in Illustrator are not seen by Inkscape.
Second and very important fact – Inkscape generates on the output files that are 2 and a half or even 3 times smaller than those from Illustrator.
Within "save" menu Inkscape offers automatically conversion of any font to path.

BTW – after many attempts and experiments with laser printers and everlasting problems that our host and friend OCTO described earlier – i.e. non adequate body of the fonts when printed, I found that the conversion form "font to path" definitely solves this problem.
In above described method the strokes are the most important element because the fonts themselves play the role only for fundamental.

If you are interested, please find the attached files with samples and compare with the original file engraved with Maestro font.
The names of the files help to understand what the difference in-between is.

Observed on screen the picture looks rather embolden – but don' worry – when you send the test files to the printer the result IMHO is very exiting.

Best regards,
Wess
Attachments
C---0.085 mm outline 7 vs 5 mm STAFF Maestro LITE ORG.pdf
(118.74 KiB) Downloaded 450 times
B---0.085 mm outline 7 vs 5 mm STAFF Maestro.pdf
(112.77 KiB) Downloaded 403 times
B---0.085 mm outline 7 vs 5 mm STAFF Maestro LITE.pdf
(360.88 KiB) Downloaded 401 times
Last edited by wess-music on 01 Nov 2015, 02:08, edited 4 times in total.
User avatar
wess-music
Posts: 51
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 10:40

Re: Resized staff and symbol sizes

Post by wess-music »

"C---0.085...Maestro LITE ORG " represents the picture of how the score looks in Finale before the manipulation.
"B---0.085... MAESTRO" shows the music engraved with the original Maestro font – for reference.

"B---0.085 mm outline 7 vs 5 mm STAFF Maestro LITE.pdf" is the manipulated file
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John Ruggero
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Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 14:25
Location: Raleigh, NC USA

Re: Resized staff and symbol sizes

Post by John Ruggero »

The resulting print IS very exciting, Wess! I have never used Inkscape, but this gives me incentive.
M1 Mac mini (OS 12.4), Dorico, Finale 25.5, GPO 4, Affinity Publisher 2, SmartScore 64 Pro, JW Plug-ins, TG Tools, Keyboard maestro

http://www.cantilenapress.com
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OCTO
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Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 06:52
Location: Sweden

Re: Resized staff and symbol sizes

Post by OCTO »

Absolutely astonishing...!

Interesting, some days ago I was testing Inkscape. I have got some results but I was not so precise.
Look:
A 2015-11-01 at 8.03.57 PM.png
A 2015-11-01 at 8.03.57 PM.png (18.62 KiB) Viewed 8368 times
In Wess' example, the accidental and ledger lines have got rounded shape. I love it.
Freelance Composer. Self-Publisher.
Finale 27.3 • Sibelius 2023.5• MuseScore 4+ • Logic Pro X+ • Ableton Live 11+ • Digital Performer 10+ /// MacOS Monterey (secondary in use systems: Fedora 35, Windows 10)
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wess-music
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Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 10:40

Re: Resized staff and symbol sizes

Post by wess-music »

Thank you your positive attitude, JOHN and OCTO,

right now I am preparing a short video tutorial how to do this. Once the PS file is ready the whole procedure is almost 2 minutes including saving the new file.

About the roundness – this is another trick performed in Illustrator, but everyone can apply it in many other programs.
I will show how I get this result in my next video.
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John Ruggero
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Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 14:25
Location: Raleigh, NC USA

Re: Resized staff and symbol sizes

Post by John Ruggero »

The rounded shape is Wess's speciality, and I am very eager to see how it is done.
M1 Mac mini (OS 12.4), Dorico, Finale 25.5, GPO 4, Affinity Publisher 2, SmartScore 64 Pro, JW Plug-ins, TG Tools, Keyboard maestro

http://www.cantilenapress.com
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wess-music
Posts: 51
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 10:40

Re: Resized staff and symbol sizes

Post by wess-music »

The Video illustrations are already uploaded and might be found as links on my new treat, as OCTO suggested.
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