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Placing ornaments, symbols, and graphics in NWC file.
User Tip #: 133 Offered By: Robert A. on 2003-03-11 18:02:05 Last Modified: 2004-09-10 11:51:15

NWC can place virtually any True Type font character into a NWC file.

To do this, you must install the desired font in your system. Then, choose it as a "user font" in page setup within NWC. Using the NWC text editor, you can place one or more characters from the font.

The NWC Scriptorium has a number of fonts containing musical ornaments, such as glissando, mordent, frets. But you can place characters unrelated to the music, if you wish. For example, you can browse the Internet for free fonts with holiday and ethnic symbols. Look in fonts such as Webdings, Wingdings, and Monotype Sorts for symbols that you already have. You may also need to use this technique if you are placing letters with accented characters or special punctuation.

Many font characters do not correspond to the computer keyboard. It is possible to specify such characters by numerical coding, but the easiest way is to use a character map utility. You have a character map in the "Accessories" programs that came with Windows. MS Word has a built-in character map (for placing symbols). You can use a third-party character map, such as the free "Typecase" if you prefer visibly larger characters.

In general, a character map works this way: You choose the font you wish to use. A grid will appear, containing all of the characters in that font (not including the extended sets of Open Type Unicode fonts). To select a character, click it, and it will be copied to the clipboard. Some character maps first create an internal buffer, which must then be transferred to the clipboard. You can copy several characters together.

From the clipboard, paste the characters into the destination. Keep in mind that you are pasting character codes, not the characters themselves. The characters will appear in the font specified in the destination program.

In the case of the NWC text editor, pasted characters will appear in a text-face font (Times) even if the user font is something else. In other words, even if your user font is Greek or Russian, the pasted characters will be Latin. But when you close the NWC text editor, the correct Greek or Russian characters will show in the music, and will print.