The <symbol> element
Parent element: <direction-type>
The <symbol> element specifies a musical symbol using a canonical SMuFL glyph name. It is used when an occasional musical symbol is interspersed into text. It should not be used in place of semantic markup, such as metronome marks that mix text and symbols. Left justification is used if not specified. Enclosure is none if not specified.
Content
Attributes
| Name | Type | Required? | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| color | color | No | Indicates the color of an element. |
| default-x | tenths | No | Changes the computation of the default horizontal position. The origin is changed relative to the left-hand side of the note or the musical position within the bar. Positive x is right and negative x is left. This attribute provides higher-resolution positioning data than the <offset> element. Applications reading a MusicXML file that can understand both features should generally rely on this attribute for its greater accuracy. |
| default-y | tenths | No | Changes the computation of the default vertical position. The origin is changed relative to the top line of the staff. Positive y is up and negative y is down. This attribute provides higher-resolution positioning data than the placement attribute. Applications reading a MusicXML file that can understand both attributes should generally rely on this attribute for its greater accuracy. |
| dir | text-direction | No | The text-direction attribute is used to adjust and override the Unicode bidirectional text algorithm, similar to the Directionality data category in the W3C Internationalization Tag Set recommendation. The default value is ltr. This attribute is typically used by applications that store text in left-to-right visual order rather than logical order. Such applications can use the lro value to better communicate with other applications that more fully support bidirectional text. |
| enclosure | enclosure-shape | No | Formatting of an enclosure around text or symbols. |
| font-family | font-family | No | A comma-separated list of font names. |
| font-size | font-size | No | One of the CSS sizes or a numeric point size. |
| font-style | font-style | No | Normal or italic style. |
| font-weight | font-weight | No | Normal or bold weight. |
| halign | left-center-right | No | In cases where text extends over more than one line, horizontal alignment and justify values can be different. The most typical case is for credits, such as:Words and music by Typically this type of credit is aligned to the right, so that the position information refers to the right-most part of the text. But in this example, the text is center-justified, not right-justified. The halign attribute is used in these situations. If it is not present, its value is the same as for the justify attribute. For elements where a justify attribute is not allowed, the default is implementation-dependent. |
| id | ID | No | Specifies an ID that is unique to the entire document. |
| justify | left-center-right | No | Indicates left, center, or right justification. The default value varies for different elements. For elements where the justify attribute is present but the halign attribute is not, the justify attribute indicates horizontal alignment as well as justification. |
| letter-spacing | number-or-normal | No | Specifies text tracking. Values are either normal, which allows flexibility of letter-spacing for purposes of text justification. or a number representing the number of ems to add between each letter. The number may be negative in order to subtract space. The value is normal if not specified. |
| line-height | number-or-normal | No | Specifies text leading. Values are either normal or a number representing the percentage of the current font height to use for leading. It is normal if not specified. The exact normal value is implementation-dependent, but values between 100 and 120 are recommended. |
| line-through | number-of-lines | No | Number of lines to use when striking through text. |
| overline | number-of-lines | No | Number of lines to use when overlining text. |
| relative-x | tenths | No | Changes the horizontal position relative to the default position, either as computed by the individual program, or as overridden by the default-x attribute. Positive x is right and negative x is left. It should be interpreted in the context of the <offset> element or directive attribute if those are present. |
| relative-y | tenths | No | Changes the vertical position relative to the default position, either as computed by the individual program, or as overridden by the default-y attribute. Positive y is up and negative y is down. It should be interpreted in the context of the placement attribute if that is present. |
| rotation | rotation-degrees | No | Used to rotate text around the alignment point specified by the halign and valign attributes. Positive values are clockwise rotations, while negative values are counter-clockwise rotations. |
| underline | number-of-lines | No | Number of lines to use when underlining text. |
| valign | valign | No | Indicates vertical alignment to the top, middle, bottom, or baseline of the text. The default is implementation-dependent. |
Examples
This element is used in the following examples: