Manual The Grid System


Number Of Bars Per Row

cartoon guitar player by bethann93 (vecteezy.com)

The "grid system"

There is an underlying grid system to vertically align the bars nicely.
By default it consists of 4 bars per row. A line with just one bar/chord is only a quarter of the page width. Two bars use half the width and so on.

If you add more than 4 bars they will become narrower. And if you add too many bars in a single line, it may become unreadable. To avoid this, just use more lines. It's best to use 4 bars/chords per row.

Setting
There is a user setting for the number of bars to adjust the way the bars are stretched across the available row width.
To make the grid system more obvious the following examples use the trackline style.
But of course, the same rules apply for the regular barline style.
The Grid System Number of Bars = 4 "default" Example: The Grid System
The Grid System Number of Bars = 5 Example: The Grid System
The Grid System Number of Bars = 2 Example: The Grid System
The Grid System Number of Bars = 8 Example: The Grid System
The following examples show some real applications that use this setting.

Number Of Bars (per row)

The global default value for the number of bars (nob) per row is 4.
Example (nob = 4): We Have All The Time In The World (Louis Armstrong)

But sometimes it's useful to choose a different value.

Vertical Alignment

To keep the bars vertically aligned if there are some added extra bars in an otherwise straight 4 bar per row progression.
Example (nob = 5): Nothing Ever Happens (Del Amitri)
Example (nob = 6): And I Love Her (The Beatles)
Example (nob = 8): Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses (U2)

Use The Full Width

Split bar changes with just two bars per row.
Example (nob = 2): True Colors (Cyndi Lauper)

Right Margin

To get a larger right margin, e.g. for annotations.
Example (nob = 6): Your Song (Elton John)

Some Real Examples

Just try and experiment with different values for the number of bars setting.
It can help to get a cleaner overall layout and better vertical alignment.
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