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Resizing Scores Using the Personal Composer Demo

Sep 18, 2017

This post will sound a lot like the “Transposing Using Personal Composer” post.  Thank you copy/paste. 🙂

Sometimes you may find that you need the scores bigger or smaller to suit your needs.  Here’s how you do that, step by step.  

First, a couple of general notes:

  • To resize a score, you will need to download the score in Personal Composer format. It has a .pc extension. The program will not work on the PDF files, so make sure you get the right file format.
  • The Personal Composer demo works only on PCs, not on Macs. I am truly sorry this is so, but there it is. If you have only a Mac, it is possible (one might say “very likely”) that you have a friend with a PC who can help you out.

Okay… now that the basics are out of the way here are the details, step by step.

  1. Download the Personal Composer demo(Or download the .zip file instead.) The download is about 5.5 Mb. Install the demo program on your PC. (Not on your Mac. It won’t work.)
  2. Download your chosen .pc file. (Not .pdf file. It won’t work.)
  3. Open the .pc file (if it doesn’t open automatically) by either double-clicking the file in your Windows Explorer, or by opening the Personal Composer program and using the file/open command.
  4. Click the “File/Page setup” command.
  5. From the menu that appears, select the “Staff Size” tab.
  6. Choose the desired staff size.  (All my scores use the “Peter” setting. Anything above that is larger, anything below is smaller.)
  7. Click “ok.”
  8. This is where the fun starts. Things will have moved around a bit, and you’re going to have to drag them into position. Most items can be dragged around with the arrow tool.  Margins have to be moved using the staff tool. Both are found on the menus at the top.
  9. When you’re satisfied with the look of the score, print your transposition AND PROOF IT CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU CLOSE THE DEMO. You can’t save your work in the Personal Composer Demo (hey, it’s a demo!) so be sure it looks right before you close the program.

That’s all folks!

One final note: If enlarging the lyric text is all you want to do, you can use the arrow tool (in the toolbar up at the top) to highlight the text lines and hit your + key.  That will enlarge your text.  Of course, you’ll have to fuss with the spacing… 

Happy resizing!

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Handy info…