Creating centered beams

Dorico Pro Help
Product
Dorico Pro
Version
5.1
Language
English
Document type
Webhelp
ft:openMode
fluidtopics

You can center beams between the notes in the beamed group. You can do this for the current layout and frame chain only, or for all layouts and frame chains.

Note

These steps only apply to beams on a single staff. To center beams between multiple staves, you can create cross-staff beams.

Prerequisite

  • If you are in Engrave mode, Graphic Editing Graphic Editing button is selected in the Engrave toolbox.

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

Procedure

  1. Select at least one note in each of the beams you want to center. You can do this in Write mode and Engrave mode.
  2. Create a centered beam in one of the following ways:

    • If the selected beams include notes on both sides of the middle staff line, choose Edit > Notations > Stem > Force Centered Beam.

    • If the selected beams include notes only on one side of the middle staff line, choose Edit > Notations > Stem > Custom Centered Beam to open the Custom Centered Beam dialog.

    Tip

    You can also choose these options from the context menu.

  3. Optional: If you created a custom centered beam, change the stem direction of each note in the selected beams as required in the Custom Centered Beam dialog, then click OK.

Result

Beams are centered between the notes in the selected beam groups. If the property scope was set to Locally, this change only takes effect in the current layout and frame chain.

If you select notes in multiple beams, each beam is centered separately. If you want to create a single centered beam, you can beam the notes in those beam groups together. You can do this both before and after centering the beams.

Note

  • Dorico Pro automatically angles the beam based on the shape of the phrase, but you can change the angles or slants of beams manually.

  • You can assign a key command for Force Centered Beam on the Key Commands page in Preferences.