reference.book Page 396 Monday, August 31, 2009 2:47 PM
5. Power tools
5.4 Color 5.10 Highlight.
Sibelius allows you to color most objects in your scores. This is very useful for producing more eyecatching scores – for example, you might want to color all the tempo directions or rehearsal marks a particular color to make them stand out for the conductor or performers – and also has educational applications: you could use different colors to differentiate between different fingerings or chord diagrams, or color each pitch on a notation staff differently to help students learn to read music.
How to color an object Changing the color of an object is simple: Select the object (or objects) you want to color Choose Edit Color (shortcut Ctrl+J or J) A standard color picker dialog appears: choose the color you want and click OK.
To color another object the same color as the last color you applied, select the object and choose Edit Reapply Color (shortcut Ctrl+Shift+J or J). You can color objects individually, or a whole bunch of selected objects at once. For example, to change the color of all the notes in a bar, select the bar so that it’s surrounded by a single light blue box, then choose Edit Color. You can also use filters ( 5.7 Filters and Find) to select, say, all the lyrics in your song and color them all at once.
Resetting an object’s color To reset the color of an object to black, select it and choose Layout Reset Design (shortcut Ctrl+Shift+D or D).
Viewing notes in color Whether you can see notes whose color you have changed depends on the option you have chosen in the View Note Colors submenu. If you have Voice Colors switched on, all notes will be colored according to this option, and not according to any individual colors you have chosen. Userchosen colors are only visible if either None or Notes Out of Range are switched on. 5.23 View menu.
Printing in color You can print your score in full color if desired – simply ensure that the Print in color option in the File Print dialog is switched on. If you have a black-and-white printer, colored objects will print in shades of gray. If this option is switched off, all colored objects will be printed in black – 5.16 Printing.
Which objects can be colored? With a few exceptions, you can change the color of anything you can select, including notes, lines, text, chord diagrams, symbols, and more. 396