User manual

Table Of Contents
RESULT
The selected notes are shown on a different staff, with a cross-staff beam shown if the notes are
part of a beam group. This does not change the staff to which the notes belong.
NOTE
When crossing notes to a staff that already contains notes, the stem direction of the
existing notes on the staff can change. This is due to how multiple voices at the same
rhythmic position are handled. Therefore, you may have to change the stem direction of
notes manually.
You can reset notes to appear on their default staff by selecting them and choosing Edit >
Cross Staff > Reset to Original Staff.
If you want notes to belong to a different staff, you can move them to another staff.
EXAMPLE
Notes all in the upper staff of a grand staff
instrument
Notes spanning both staves of a grand staff
instrument
RELATED LINKS
Moving notes to other staves on page 256
Creating cross-staff beams on page 406
Notes crossed to staves with existing notes in other voices on page 788
Note positions in multiple-voice contexts on page 784
Changing the stem direction of notes on page 691
Optical spacing for cross-staff beams
Normally, the human eye perceives the evenness of rhythmic spacing according to the distance
between noteheads. However, for cross-staff beams we consider the distance between stems,
rather than the noteheads, to be even/uneven.
You can make stems, rather than noteheads, evenly spaced by activating Use optical spacing for
beams between staves for layouts in your project that contain cross-staff beams on the Note
Spacing page in Setup > Layout Options.
Default spacing: The distance between noteheads is
optimized.
Optical spacing for cross-staff beaming: the distance
between stems is optimized.
Beaming
Creating cross-staff beams
407