How To Use The App
How To Get Started.
Start working your way through the parameters.
There are 4 main sections and there are Help Pages next to many of the parameters
so that you can get the information as you need it.
Paper and Margins
Choose the type of paper you will be printing on.
Set the margins, Left, Right, Top, Bottom, for how much space you want.
The image you save and print will fit the dimensions of your paper choice.
Because we are working on a phone, the image that is displayed on the phone will be squashed and stretched to fit the shape of the screen. Even if you have a Landscape mode image, when it is displayed in the interactive screen, it will have the same aspect ratio as your phone.
StavesChoose how the staves are grouped.
For one saxophone, in Stave Grouping
enter: 1
then choose how many rows you want on a page.
For piano, in Stave Grouping
enter: 2
for two staves grouped together into a grand staff.
For an ensemble of 3 woodwinds, 3 brass and a string quartet, in Stave Grouping
enter: 3 3 4
Vertical Lines
You can choose to have measure lines drawn if you wish.
Printing Options
You can omit rows. So, lets say you have a setting you like with 8 single staves on the page.
But you would like a page that omits the first staff for the title page.
Omit the first line:
enter 1
Templates
You can save your settings as a template, which can be modified later.
File Location
When you save an image it can be found in your Files App in the folder called ManuscriptPaper.
Printing
Once you save a Manuscript Image, you can send it to a printer, or attach it to an email.
Examples
If you are a little unsure, or would like to look at some examples take a look at some of the Example Templates. If you see something that is similar to what you want, use that as a starting place. Fiddle with the settings and see how it changes.
What paper choices are there?
The first thing to decide is the dimensions of your printed page.
These are the currently available page sizes:
Staves and Grouping
Simple Staves
If you are writing for only one instrument and you want 8 staves per page you would enter:
Stave Grouping: 1
Rows Per Page: 8
The staff height will grow or shrink to fit the number of staves you choose.
If you add space for more ledger lines, the height of the staves will shrink to accomodate.
Likewise, decreasing the number of ledger lines will increase the size of the staves.
Ensembles
If you are writing for a group of instruments, let’s say voice and piano, you would enter:
Stave Grouping: 1 2
The two staves for the piano would now be grouped together with an extra vertical line to the left of the staff.
A larger ensemble with 2 woodwinds, 3 brass, 1 percussion and 1 piano would have:
Stave Grouping: 2 3 1 2
The 2 woodwinds would be grouped together, the 3 brass would be in a group, and the piano would have two staves grouped. The percussion would not be grouped.
For grouping, enter only numbers separated by a space like the following examples:
1 3 2
1 1 2
How and why would I omit lines?
Omit Rows
If you like the size of the staff when there are 10 rows per page, but want more space between the staves to write comments, you can omit every other line.
Omit Rows: 1 3 5 7 9
This would give you 5 staves with lots of space.
If you wanted to make large, widely-spaced staves for increased visibility, you could go back and decrease the number of ledger lines, making the staff height expand a bit.
If you have 10 rows per page and want space on the first page for a title, on the first page you would:
Enter only numbers separated by a space like the following examples:
Omit the first row: 1 Omit the first, third and fifth row: 1 3 5 Omit the third row: 3
Omit Rows: 1
Ledger Lines
By increasing the number of ledger lines you increases the space between the staves.
But since we have to squeeze the same number of staves on the page, the size of the staves decreases.
By adjusting the number of staves per page and the number of ledger lines, you can have lots of control over the height of the staves.
Line Width
The line width is a percentage of the space between staff lines.
A line width of 10% means the line thickness is 1/10 the distance between adjacent staff lines.
Vertical Lines
End Bars
The bar lines at the far left and right of the staff.
Measures
If you want to have the measure lines drawn the measures will be evenly divided left to right.
Space for Clef
If you are electing to have the measure lines drawn, you may want to leave a little extra space for
the Clef, Key Signature and Time Signature. It is measured in % of the staff length, left to right.
The default setting is to use 5% of the available space for clef, key signature and time signature.
The rest of the space is divided evenly between the measures.
Your needs may vary greatly and this control will accomodate.
Aspect Ratio, Display vs Print
Because of the size limitations of designing for a smartphone, decisions were made.
In order to display the proper aspect ratio of the printed output on a small screen would mean that in many cases, like when the page is in Landscape Orientation, resolution would be compromised. I take the output image and squash and stretch it to fit the dimensions of your phone.
I take the output image and squash and stretch it to fit the dimensions of your phone to maximize the display of these tiny lines.
At the top of the page where you interactively view the results, there are two rectangles,
one labled: Print which shows the aspect ratio of the printed page and
one labled: Display which shows the aspect ratio on your phone.
PPI - Pixels Per Inch
The image that you create is designed to fit the paper size you have chosen. For most people, the default 300 PPI setting should be fine. The image would have 300 pixels for every inch of paper.
More pixels per inch means higher resolution. It also means a larger file size to store more pixel data and will use up more of your storage space. So it is to your advantage to choose the lowest resolution that works for you.
It is probably best to try the default 300 PPI first and see if you like the result.
The PPI value choices are: 75, 150, 300, 600, 1200, 2400.
Depending on your needs and the printer you are using, you could raise or lower the resolution. If your printer's highest resolution supports printing 300 PPI images, then saving the image as 600 PPI would be overkill.
Examples and Templates
While working in the app, all of your settings can be saved as a Template.
All the Examples that are included with the app are Templates.
If you see an example template that is similar to what you want to build, you can load
the template, make some changes and save the template to your personal saved Templates.
You can always make changes.
Try to name your templates in a way that will make sense later on.
At first, when you don't have many templates, it won't seem so necessary.
Each saved template requires a unique template name before you can save.
The templates can be sorted and deleted as necessary.
Saving Images, Printing and Sharing
Saving Images
When you have some manuscript paper settings that you want to print:
From the Files App, you can treat the image file like any other image file.
You can send it to a printer, Air-Drop, or email the image.
You can also delete it. And if you have saved the settings as a template, you will always be able to save and print it again if needed.