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Is there any way to get symbols other than the most basic sharps and flats inlined in questions and answers? I've been a little frustrated recently with a) the limitations of Unicode glyphs (for instance, no double sharps or double flats - x and ♭♭ don't really cut it), and b) the limitations of Markdown.

As an example of the latter, I used Venter image description here in a discussion. The figure I've attached to V here is an illustration I nicked from Wikipedia. If I were to have used <sup> and <sub>, I would have got something like this: V65 - there is no way of backspacing superscripts and subscripts in Markdown.

The problem with this is that these are kludges, and too often they look like (really nasty) kludges. That is, they neither look professional nor are they as easy to read as the proper symbols would be. The typesetting requirements of music theory aren't far behind being as exacting as maths, and Mathematics SE can inline their symbols.

I'm not an expert in Web-based programming, but surely we can do something similar? MusiΧTeΧ maybe?

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    It will definitely be one of the things that will be looked at when this site graduates.
    – Neil Meyer
    Commented Jul 26, 2015 at 4:53
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    The sooner, the better, I think, @NeilMeyer. I'm personally indifferent to the promised customisation of the site design except in how it affects the legibility of the content.
    – user16935
    Commented Jul 26, 2015 at 7:21
  • Unicode does have symbols for all that. Double flat: &#119083;
    – user28
    Commented Jul 26, 2015 at 16:23
  • Try using that in Markdown, @MatthewRead. Dunno about you, but I get a little white box: &#119083; (and obviously nothing at all in the comments <wry grin>).
    – user16935
    Commented Jul 26, 2015 at 18:59
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    That's more of a problem with your computer/browser. If you use Chrome on Windows, try installing the fonts from here and rebooting: gschoppe.com/uncategorized/… (there will be similar solutions for other platforms/browsers).
    – user28
    Commented Jul 27, 2015 at 4:02
  • Thanks. More a problem with my font set, evidently - whooda thunk it? (I have considerably more than the usual Windows set.)
    – user16935
    Commented Jul 27, 2015 at 4:28
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    Standard fonts (on Windows at least, and I think also Ubuntu) don't support those double sharps and flats. I spent a significant amount of time on formatting a question, only to discover they aren't supported. Probably a custom font in a stylesheet would cover this (and is likely needed for Lilypad rendering anyway).
    – Josiah
    Commented Jul 27, 2015 at 17:38

2 Answers 2

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This post requesting features for the site on graduation shows that SE are aware that it is necessary and appear to have agreed to implementing a version if Lilypond.

Music SE is graduating. Congratulations!

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  • Rory, if we can use it for inlining, great! I'm not worried about score examples - I can create a JPEG file from a Sibelius score in a matter of seconds. Musescore has graphics export capabilities as well (and it's free).
    – user16935
    Commented Jul 26, 2015 at 12:37
  • I think MuseScore and Lilypond were two of the options discussed. Looks like for inline, a js-ready implementation is key to easily have it integrated with SE.
    – Doktor Mayhem Mod
    Commented Jul 26, 2015 at 14:30
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I would also like to add that you can use screen capture software to take snapshots of your computer screen which you can then upload as pictures here.

I personally use a trail copy of bandicam purely for taking snapshots. So if you have a pdf of the music you can use this type of software to enhance your questions.

Find this type of software HERE

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  • Actually, Neil, I suspect that I am rather notorious for appending musical examples to my answers. Sibelius can export a selected part of the score to BMP. I then import the resulting file into MS Paint to make any quick crops needed and to export to JPEG. The time to do this is generally under a minute. I believe most notation programmes have similar export capabilities. For screen captures, the PrtScr key works fine, leaves the image on the clipboard for pasting into Paint to save to file. The longest part of the job is giving it a file name.
    – user16935
    Commented Jul 27, 2015 at 17:04
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    However, I'm really more concerned with inline symbols, i.e., adding the proper figured bass notations to Roman numeral notation (as in my question), or similar items, to the text of a question or answer.
    – user16935
    Commented Jul 27, 2015 at 17:09

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