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Hybrid center-left alignment of lyrics

Open samuelbradshaw opened this issue 5 years ago • 0 comments

Currently, lyrics are left-aligned by default (see https://github.com/opensheetmusicdisplay/opensheetmusicdisplay/issues/357).

I'd like to propose a hybrid center-left alignment of lyrics, which I think would be ideal for songs with multiple verses:

  1. Most words in the lyrics are center-aligned.
  2. The first word for each verse is left-aligned.
  3. (possibly) The first word after an <end-line>or <end-paragraph> element (that is, the beginning of each phrase in the lyrics) is left-aligned.
  4. (possibly) The first word on each system is left-aligned.
  5. All left-aligned words are shifted a few extra pixels to the left, so they are still "under" their notes.

This seems to be the standard alignment pattern for hymns in hymnals (I have several examples I could attach photos of, if it would be helpful). (1), (2), and (5) are almost universal for lyric alignment in hymnals. Points (3) and (4) vary between hymnals.

Hymnals are optimized for efficient use of space and readability of lyrics, so I think they're a good example to follow for lyric spacing and alignment, even outside the domain of hymn publishing.

samuelbradshaw avatar Jun 25 '19 00:06 samuelbradshaw