4. Techniques

Text over notes

Text over a note is a short instruction for whoever reads the part: “Fill”, “harm. 12”, “to Coda”, “building”. It’s what notation calls staff text, and what Guitar Pro calls a beat’s text. It belongs to the note: it moves, copies and repeats with it, and goes when the note is deleted. It plays nothing.

Text over the note

Available on every platform.

Write text over a note

1. Select the note, or put the caret on it. With several selected, the text goes on the first.
2. Type Text over the Note… (⌥T)Text over the Note… (Alt+T)Text over the Note… (Alt+T (⌥T on a Mac)), or right-click the note and choose Text over the Note….
3. Type the words in the field that opens over the note, and confirm.

The field opens with the note’s text, if it has some, so the same steps change it. Empty the field to take the text off. Each change is one undo step.

The text holds up to 31 characters (fewer with accented letters or symbols); spaces at either end are trimmed. Text over the Note… works in an Editor pane and a Score pane alike, on any track, drums included, from the keys or the note’s menu.

Where it shows

The text is notation: the Editor’s lanes don’t show it, the Score does. A Score pane writes it over its note in the staff text’s font, italic at first; Score Setup’s Text rows set its family, face and size along with the other kinds of text. It’s written once, not again over a tied continuation of the note. PDFs and presentations print it the same way.

To move a text that sits awkwardly, drag it in the Score pane. The offset is kept with the note. Right-click the moved text and choose Reset Position to put it back where the Score placed it.

Guitar Pro files

A beat’s text in a Guitar Pro file comes in as text over the note when you import it, and goes back out when you export to Guitar Pro.