Q: Is there a way in Sibelius to align the tuplet number with the middle note of a tuplet group? The way Sibelius places the number always looks incorrect to me.
A: Yes. Default tuplet positioning is controlled from Engraving Rules in Sibelius 6 and 7.
Here is what the Default tuplet positioning looks like in Sibelius. Note that both the triplet and sextuplet numbers appear slightly to the left of the middle notehead and stem if the stems are down, and to the right of the middle notehead and stem if the stems are up:
To move the tuplet numbers left or right globally, go into Engraving Rules, and select the Tuplet panel. Locate the “Horizontal Distance From Notes” section. While not entirely intuitive, the entry value for “spaces from stem of first note” controls the positioning of the tuplet number when stems are down, while “spaces from stem of last note” moves the tuplet number when stems are up. The values in both of these fields are .5 spaces. Here, I’ve changed these both to zero:
This moves the tuplet numbers .5 spaces closer to the perceived center of the beam groups, as shown in this example:
Remember, you can always move an *individual* tuplet number by highlighting it and arrowing it over a click or two; the the key is to use a global positioning setting in Engraving Rules that looks correct for the majority of cases, then adjust the few individual cases that don’t look right manually.
~robert
Thanks for creating this fast tutorial, Robert. My score looks much better already!
Another easy solution is to move the adjust the notes in the tuplet to make the horizontal spacing of the notes even. By default, the tuplet numbers center on the length of the tuplet bar, so ensuring that the bar is no longer than necessary and the notes under it are spaced evenly, the tuplet numeral centers nicely.
Thanks a lot! – Thats a huge time-saver. Did it always for every single n-tole manually… ;)