Graphic options and automatisms |
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Graphic options [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]
A dialog box is used to define a series of graphic parameters
which influence the display of the score on the printer or on the
screen.
- Start Pizzicato and select the Graphic options... item
in the Options menu. The graphic options dialog
box appears:

- The first 6 text boxes determine the thickness of various
lines as the note stem, the staff lines
The values
must be expressed in tenth of millimeter and are used
during the printing of the score. These values are
reduced or increased in ratio when you change the
reduction/enlargement percentage for printing (Pizzicato
Professional only).
- A text box lets you specify the maximum angle to use for
the position of the notes beams. A 25 degrees angle for
example will give a maximum slope corresponding to:

A 10 degrees angle would give as a maximum:

By selecting a 0 degree angle, you can force Pizzicato to
draw all beams horizontally. This option may be useful when
the score is printed on a printer with a low resolution
(dot-matrix printer) because it eliminates the bad effect
obtained with oblique lines.
- The 16 check boxes located below enable the visibility of
the 8 rhythmic voices on the printer and on the screen.
In 99 % of the cases, all boxes should remain checked. By
disabling one of the boxes, the corresponding voice will
become invisible in the score, on the printer and/or on
the screen. It nevertheless remains present and one can
listen to it with the synthesizer.
- The first menu located just below is entitled Use of
colours and proposes four choices. The default
choice is Black colour, which draws all notes
and rests in black on the score. The second choice is Voice
colour. In this case, notes are drawn in the colour
of the rhythmic voice to which they belong. The next
choice, Track colour, draws notes and rests in
the colour associated with the staff. This colour may be
selected in the instruments view. The last choice is Colour
by scale/chord. This option is quite interesting to
compose music. When the score has chords in it (encoded
with the chord notation tool) the notes are then
displayed in three colours:
- Green: the note is part of the current chord.
- Orange: the note is part of a scale deduced
from the chord
- Red: the note is not part of the chord
neither of the scale
- The next menu is used to change the colour of various
score elements. Select one of them with the menu:

and click on the button just right in front of it. A
dialog box is displayed to associate a colour with the
selected element. You may change the colour of clefs,
measures, etc in order to personalize your score or to create
non standard scores. Regarding the lyrics colors, the
modification will be effective on all staves of all scores of
the document.
- The next menu is used to change the font used for various
text elements. Select an item of this menu:

and click on the button right in front of it. A dialog box
appears to select a font, a size and a style. This font will
be used to draw the selected elements in the score. Regarding
the lyrics fonts, the modification will be effective on all
staves of all scores of the document.
- Just below, a check box lets you see the invisible notes,
rests and symbols. You can then find any item that is
hidden in the score. This option is valid only on the
screen because invisible symbols will not be printed on
paper.
- The Print with colours box specifies
that colours must be printed. You of course need to have
a colour printer or a black and white printer with gray
levels; otherwise this option will have no effect.
- The default character set may be used to specify which
script will be used by default in text blocks. The
default is Occidental, but you can for instance set it to
Hebrew, Greek or Arabic.
Click OK to close the dialog box.
Automatisms [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]
In the Options menu, select the Automatisms... item.
The following dialog box appears:

The higher part of this dialog box specifies the distances
between the various elements. These distances are represented by
sliders and can vary between 0 and 12. To modify them, click on
the cursor and drag it.
When you modify these values, the graphic result is directly
visible in the upper area. Here is an example where all values
are 0 (elements are the tightest):

and here is an example where all distances are set to 12
(elements are the most distant):

The four boxes of the Automatic positioning of frame
enable or disable the automatic positioning of:
- accidentals in a chord,
- courtesy key signatures
- courtesy time signatures
- naturals in key signatures, when the key signature
changes
The options specified here affect the current document.