Sibelius : Controlling Text Visibility Between Score & Parts

In observing the steps people go through to change visibility of text between score and parts in Sibelius, I thought a short tutorial post on the subject might be helpful.

Headers and other types of both system and staff attached text are normally shared between the score and the parts, visible in both. The default setting is to show text entered from the score view in both score and parts, whether it is page / system text or staff attached text.

While working within a part, it is a simple key shortcut to Show or Hide an individual bit of text in that view (part) only (the keystroke toggles visibility):

CNTRL-SHIFT-H / windows • CMND-SHIFT-H / mac

… However, this is a lot of extra steps, particularly in an orchestral score with a lot of parts. It is much easier to do this in a single step for cases where you want the visibility of all the parts set the same way, and the score set a different way:

Let’s say I have a piece of text that I want hidden in the score, but visible in the parts:

For instance, I don’t want to show the “Concert Score” text centered at the top of every page of score, but I do want to show the instrument name in the same location on every page of every part.

This is relatively straightforward to do in both Sibelius 6 & Sibelius 7:

  1. Go to the Score View
  2. Right-click on the text object you want to hide in score.
  3. Select Hide or Show > Show In Parts from the contextual menu.

To Hide Text in all the parts, while viewing the score, choose Show in Score from the contextual menu.

You should find that this is less work than individually hiding text as you go, and you can still hide text in a single part (a duplicate dynamic in the part or whatever) on a case by case basis with the keystroke toggle.
You can choose the Hide or Show > Show in Parts contextual menu item from either the score or part views.
Originally published 9/6/11

5 Replies to “Sibelius : Controlling Text Visibility Between Score & Parts”

  1. Hi,

    I can hide note names with mouse: select notes and put shift+command+h and notes will be hidden but note names to show. Note names I added before.

    Can I hide notes but show note names WITH hotkeys or WITH other method (not with mouse separatelly)?

    1. Hi Christian,

      What kind of text are the note names? You can find this by going to the text tab in v7+ and selecting one of the names. Sibelius can filter for any text type and some are already front and center. Go to the Home tab and locate Filters > Text. If the note names text style is there, you can simply select any region or the entire document and apply the filter.

      If the text style does not appear in the list, in the Home Menu, locate Filters > Advanced Filters and when the dialog opens (with a region selected) choose Text fore both “View” and “Find” and then select the text style from the list that represents the note names. This will highlight the note names, and from there, you can apply the “Show in” visibility as per normal.

  2. Hi,

    Please, can you give me any method how can I hide from “export to PDF” instruments? I don’t like to see drums on export. Only:
    1.) treble staff
    2.) bass staff

    I tried a lot of method but Sibelius created me more parts with separated staffs or more files. I’d like to add it to one file.

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