Brackets: Horizontal lines

This entry contains instructions for placing a horizontal line or bracket above a staff, with or without a hook at the end.

To draw a horizontal line

1. Click the Smart Shape tool  . The Smart Shape palette appears. (If it doesn’t, choose Smart Shape palette from the Window Menu.)
2. Click the bracket shape you want.
3. Position the cursor in the measure where you want the bracket to begin so that the cursor arrow points to the staff to which you’re attaching it. This is particularly important when you’re working in orchestral scores; if you accidentally attach a Smart Shape to the wrong staff, it won’t appear in the correct staff when the parts are extracted.
4. Double-click; on the second click, hold the button down and drag to the right until the bracket is the correct length. It’s a good idea to press the shift key just before your double-click and hold it down while you drag; if you do so, SongWriter will constrain your dragging action to a perfectly horizontal plane, so that your bracket is perfectly level. You could also right-click the handle of the bracket and choose Make Horizontal from the contextual menu after creating the bracket.

To move, reshape, or delete a Smart Shape line

If the line is already selected, it displays diamond editing handles; if so, skip to the last step.

1. Click the Smart Shape tool  . The Smart Shape palette appears.
2. Click the handle of the shape you want to modify. The shape displays a bounding rectangle.
3. Drag the right or left end of the bounding rectangle to change the line’s length. Drag it by the center to move the line.

Tip: Press shift to constrain your cursor to vertical and horizontal lines.

4. Press DELETE to remove the selected shape.

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