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MusGlyphs: type music glyphs into text

Posted: 31 Mar 2021, 14:00
by Dan Kreider
I've created a font for typing musical symbols into text items, using glyphs from Bravura.

The goal is to use intuitive key combinations, and to space and kern the characters so they don't require extra formatting to make them look correct when mixed with text. I mostly had in mind a more efficient workflow for educators and scholars who are using musical symbols in their writing. Of course the character list is not exhaustive, and I'm aware that if there's a particular character that you need and it's missing, the font isn't much use to you... so I'm happy to add glyphs as requested.

You can download MusGlyphs here: https://github.com/dankreider/musglyphs

I appreciate the keen eyes on this forum, and I'd welcome any input you have on things that need refining. Also, I'm still new to fonts, so please let me know if there's other aspects of the font organization that could be improved. Thanks.

Re: MusGlyphs: type music glyphs into text

Posted: 31 Mar 2021, 14:48
by Dan Kreider
This is actually in the wrong place… would a moderator possibly be able to move this to the font subforum? Thanks.

Re: MusGlyphs: type music glyphs into text

Posted: 02 Apr 2021, 12:43
by John Ruggero
Dan, thank you so much! It is a terrific piece of work, and something that I will find very helpful.

Some the taller symbols are cut off at the bottom, like the treble clef or top, like the eighth note triplet, 32nd or 64th notes at 12 pt. Does one use a smaller pt. size for MusGlyphs? 10pt for MusGlyphs within 12 pt text looks like better proportions for the other symbols as well.

Re: MusGlyphs: type music glyphs into text

Posted: 02 Apr 2021, 14:18
by tisimst
This is probably the two OS/2 metrics called “Win Ascent” and “Win Descent”. If these numbers are too small, you will see clipping like this, regardless of point size. This doesn’t seem to be an issue outside of Windows.

Re: MusGlyphs: type music glyphs into text

Posted: 02 Apr 2021, 14:26
by Dan Kreider
I did encounter this same issue in MS Word, John. It was actually when inserting them into a table. I increased the spacing before and after, and it seemed to fix it.

The problem here is that there's no good solution (IMO) when musical symbols like those are added into multi-line text blocks. If they're made small enough to not mess with the leading, then they're too small to be legible!

So the ideal use for things like treble clef and time signatures is probably single-line text.

Abraham: can I adjust these values in the font to prevent the cropping?

Re: MusGlyphs: type music glyphs into text

Posted: 02 Apr 2021, 14:28
by Dan Kreider
John Ruggero wrote: 02 Apr 2021, 12:43 10pt for MusGlyphs within 12 pt text looks like better proportions for the other symbols as well.
This is precisely the sort of feedback I want to solicit, since the goal would be to not need to adjust the font size when switching between MusGlyphs and text. I felt the glyphs were too small compared to the text around them, so I had bumped many of them up.

Re: MusGlyphs: type music glyphs into text

Posted: 02 Apr 2021, 23:50
by John Ruggero
Dan, I take that back. Most of the symbols look in proportion with text at 12 pt. The time signatures do look a little large to me, however, and the 64th note runs into the line above at 12 pt in InDesign.

When I tried MusGlyphs in InDesign, I did not see the cutting off of the treble clef, triplet, and 64th note that occurs in Word, so tismst may have identified the issue, although I am using Word for Mac, not PC. And I am just inserting the symbols into single-line text, not a table.

Re: MusGlyphs: type music glyphs into text

Posted: 03 Apr 2021, 01:29
by Dan Kreider
John Ruggero wrote: 02 Apr 2021, 23:50 The time signatures do look a little large to me, however, and the 64th note runs into the line above at 12 pt in InDesign.
Thanks, I will keep that in mind and perhaps scale the time signatures down a bit, and see if I can shorten the stem of the 64th note.

Re: MusGlyphs: type music glyphs into text

Posted: 03 Apr 2021, 11:55
by John Ruggero
Dan, I sent you a private message on this site.

Re: MusGlyphs: type music glyphs into text

Posted: 05 Apr 2021, 04:49
by tisimst
Dan Kreider wrote: 02 Apr 2021, 14:26 Abraham: can I adjust these values in the font to prevent the cropping?
For sure. I strongly encourage you to. Take a look at this tutorial that talks all about these vertical font metrics and why you'd choose one value over another for each to make the font behave appropriately.

https://www.high-logic.com/font-editor/ ... ne-spacing

And even though it's a FontCreator tutorial, the core information is generic enough to be useful regardless of your choice of font editor.