Staff lines

A staff can have as many as 100 staff lines, or you can create a staff with no lines. You can also set the thickness of staff lines.

If you’re interested in making the staff lines closer together or farther apart, use the Resize Tool to change the overall size of the music, as described in To reduce or enlarge all the music on a page (or the entire piece). Once that’s done, make the notes themselves smaller (or larger) relative to the staff by choosing Fonts in the Document Options dialog box (under the Document Menu), clicking the Music button, and specifying a slightly smaller (or larger) point size for the music font in which they’re displayed.

To specify the number of lines for a staff

1. Click the Staff Tool  , and double-click the staff handle you want to modify. The Staff Attributes dialog box appears. Choose Other from the Staff popup menu.
2. Select Custom from the Staff Setup dialog box.
3. Select the number and position of the staff lines in the Staff Setup window. Click the handles to hide or show staff lines.
4. If you want to specify just the number of staff lines, select Staff Lines and type the number of lines into the Staff Lines text box. See Staff Setup dialog box for more details.
5. Click OK (or press return) twice.

To set the staff line thickness

1. From the Document Menu, choose Document Options and select Lines and Curves. The Line and Curve options appear. The units are whatever you’ve selected using the Measurement Units command (Edit Menu).
2. Enter a new value in the Staff Lines text box. Click OK (or press return).