The Spreader and the Shrinker
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| Spreader | Shrinker |
You may want to move a note a little to the right or left for aesthetic reasons, or to make more room for an accidental, or to make two notes a little farther apart to keep lyrics from running together. The Spreader tool will add to the space between two notes or other symbols; the Shrinker tool will take away space. Place the tool just before the note you want to move and click the mouse. Each click moves the note one pixel, or you can just hold the mouse down.
(If justification is turned on the effect of these tools may not be obvious, since each line of music will be constantly readjusted to come out even at the right side of the page. It's best to have justification turned off in the Score Menu whenever you're editing music, and turn it on only when you need to print).
Remember that you can can compress or expand the whole contents of a bar by dragging the barline left or right, and if you are in activity such as "2-part Composition" that has a "Score details" button you can also change the note spacing of the entire score.
When the chord symbol layer is active these tools have a different effect: they add or remove space between chord symbols. You can use the Spreader to move all chords rightward one or more beats, or the Shrinker tool to close up space between chords. For example, if you add 4 beats of music at measure two and already have chords entered for the remainder of the piece, you will probably want to move the chords after measure two rightward by 4 beats. Just activate the chord layer by choosing a chord tool or by clicking the chord line's "handle," and then click the Spreader or Shrinker at the place where you want to add beats or subtract beats.