Where can I find a copy of that mass, Missa Sancta Maria?

How interesting that the first half of your communion respond quotes RVW's anthem with the same text written for the queen's coronation. (In the unlikely case that you don't know this little gem, you should have your choir learn it. It is quite beautiful, very easy, and useful on a number of Sundays and Feasts.)

MJO,

Yes! Very familiar. We do that quite often here. There is a premium at my place on "people singing a lot...and loud", for better or worse. So, Fr. Samuel's psalm was used in this case since Psalm 33/34 is always a legit option at communion during Ordinary Time.

Regarding the RVW, though: one of my projects has been to get a repertoire of that piece and other similar general or Eucharistic motets to use on a moment's notice (i.e., if communion is taking "too long") to fill out the choir's on demand repertoire. It's a chance in attitude to have a piece like that on hand in addition to another motet/anthem, but is ultimately good for their focus and musicianship.

Halley's piece on Jesu dulcis memoria, although not based on anything remotely resembling the chant, is very nice, if you get a chance to look it up.

Finale 2011 does export to PNG.

@supernoxic: I didn't realize you could get Garamond in Finale...I am the wiser for it. I think I may be switching to Sibelius soon. I hear one Adam Bartlett favors it, and I have a composer/arranger friend here who says he is never going back to Finale...so I should at least check it out.

@Adam Wood: Adobe Pagemaker (!) It was here when I got here, and until the office's c. 2000 Dell gives up, I suppose I'll use it. Does anyone know a discount for InDesign? Or, should I just use Publisher?

@Francis: I'll have to revist that import style. I seem to remember trying that, and it not showing up. RE: left justify: we may agree to disagree there. I did that for a long time, but it never looked right to me. I know there is a healthy difference of opinion on this sort of thing, though. I know some people like hyphenating syllables in psalm pointing (even when said syllables are on the same note), but I have a terrible time reading it. Agreed for parenthesis: that was a mistake particular to that day. The rationale for "Communion Psalm" is to point up one of my projects here—namely that we should not just be singing "a communion" with any text, but a psalm. I understand your point, though. Regarding the last page...well, you'll just have to read my initial post again (and perhaps read between the lines!)

Bruce L:

apropos of your practice of having a repertoire of communion music available for instant use - we do this and have found it not only helpful and a good way to stretch the Schola's skills, but sometimes there's that shiveringly beautiful moment when the Holy Spirit fills it in a numinous way.

I highly recommend the Motecta Trium Vocum by Kevin Allen - almost all on Eucharistic texts. Also in my bag of tricks are lovely, lesser known hymns, such as 'Draw Near and Take the Body of the Lord' to the Gibbons Song 46. I shamelessly mine hymnals for this kind of thing, write a few things, etc.

I prefer Finale 2011 to Sibelius. A few years ago, I'd have said Sibelius for easier use, but Finale 2011 is so much more intuitive than previous versions, and I still think it's more powerful.

I agree with MarkThompson's point about fonts. Using two serif fonts in the same design creates an inconsistent appearance. However, you can use a serif font in several versions: (bold, italic, smallcaps), and get nice results.

Enjoyment and amusment from the font discussion since I'm a "font freak" too (the term my family uses is "The font queen"...sounds a little better)! ;)

For people who are not font geeks: avoid Times and its progeny. Times was designed for the Times of London to save newsprint. That is, not to be reader-friendly.

Georgia is a good modern serif font.

It also helps to space your lines 2 pts greater than the font size (assuming you are in the standard text sizes). So, if your font is 12 pts, have lines spaced "Exactly" "14 pt" (rather than "Single"). For certain fonts that have elegant descending g's, j's, q's and y's, et cet., you may need a little more space to avoid those being cut off oddly. Also, instead of double spacing between paragraph breaks, just standardize 6 pts after each paragraph break.

@BruceL: Right: the original document used Garamond, GoudyOldStyle, and TimesNewRoman, in regular/bold/italic. If you reduce that to all Garamond, in several varieties, it'll look better. Or you could use Garamond and a sans-serif font. I'd favor the Garamond over the Goudy because the Goudy italic looks cramped.

As an opinion, I think it's fine -- maybe even helpful -- for the music scores to use their own font for lyrics, so you needn't be concerned about making the lyrics use a font consistent with the rest of the document.

Another tip: some headers are centered: e.g.: "The Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time". That's fine. But anything longer than one line is harder to read when centered.

Do let us know how things come out when you try a new combination.

For what it is worth, our worship aides (containing all the necessary music as well) is printed on 11x17 and tri-folded.

Here is the letterhalf handout that was used last Sunday at our churches.

DougS
It started happening because of computer programming. If you have a list of strings (text that doesn't "mean anything" to the computer) you would do it like:
"This string.", "This one.", "that one", "jklkjblib";
--------

Been doing half-folded 8.5X11 all my life.
It works about the same as your current layout, but you have to use smaller fonts and long text takes up more room.
Most people can see 12pt (in a decent font) pretty well.
Music is a little problematic, though. But since you're engraving your own stuff, you can make the lyrics big enough to read.

Another thing is that you'll almost certainly need to create a half-dozen (or more) "large print" editions of everything for the people who can't read 12pt.


Also-, most typographers would disagree with:
>>Also, instead of double spacing between paragraph breaks, just standardize 6 pts after each paragraph break.

The general rule is that the blank line between paragraphs should be the same size as the line-height of lines with text. This creates a regular vertical rhythm of lines of text. (People who are really into this sort of thing would ensure that music and other images do not "throw-off" that vertical rhythm. That's a bit hard to do, though.)



I agree with NO Times / Times New Roman / Times derivative. Besides their inherent flaws, it simply looks like you used the default font on your Word Processor (which you probably did).

I'll repeat:
Good serif fonts: Garamond, Caslon, Goudy
Georgia is good too, particularly for websites, but I find it's a little too soft and easy for liturgical use.
Adobe's Caslon Pro is my go-to font for stuff at my parish. (I'm not 100% sure, but I think GIA sets it's hymnals in Caslon).

I disagree with not mixing two serif fonts in the same document, but only on theoretical grounds. IF you know what you're doing, it they're different enough, if yo're consistent with usage... it can work.
However, as a "default good taste" sort of rule, it's reasonable to say, only use one.
(Besides, it's easier. There's hardly ever a real need for selecting a second serif font.)

Sans-serif fonts are mostly unattractive, and I can't think of very many good reasons to use them in the context of a worship aide, except perhaps as titling or something.
The big problem with sans is that everyone uses arial or calibri, both of which look terrible. At least spring for Helvetica or something (or, you know, don't use a sans font).

While we're at it- other rules of good taste:

• Novelty fonts are to be avoided at all times. This includes:
  
  • Papyrus (My, aren't you creative!)
  • Anything in cursive (Look how classy THAT is!
  • Comic sans (Unless you're in kindergarten. Children deserve better than that.)
  • Anything else intended to make a statement, be cute, or otherwise draw attention to the font choice. (It's not about the font, it's about the content. God.
  • Monospace or typewriter fonts
• Nothing longer than two lines should be centered. Ever. For any reason.
• If a piece of text is going to run to a second line anyway, break it at punctuation.
• Check for orphaned hanging lines (when the last single word of a paragraph falls onto another line). This can usually be corrected by adding a line break somewhere in the block or minutely adjusting the right margin.
• Nothing longer than two lines should ever be italicized. Ever. For any reason. This includes explanatory notes, lyrics, or anything else other than a short translation, very brief instructions, or one-sentence (or less) descriptors.
• 10pt font is the smallest you should ever use, and then only for things like copyright notices.
• 12pt or 14pt are your options for body text. Smaller than that and it's hard to read. Larger and it starts to look silly. 13pt is just dumb
• You only get one body font size or the other. Do not switch back and forth from 12 to 14 for any reason.
• Be consistent. All song titles should be the same as all other song titles. The arrangement of the composers name in relationship to the title should be the same throughout. The speaker's name ("Priest:" "Deacon:" "Cantor:" "All:") should be the same throughout. Section headings, the same throughout. If you use InDesign, this is easily accomplished through the use of Paragraph styles.
• People with bad taste are constantly thinking of an exception to the "Be Consistent" rule. "But the words of institution are super important, I should make them bigger." No. There are no exceptions to the Be Consistent rule. And if you find one, it's probably because you haven't realized that the thing you're looking at is somehow analogous to another thing which it should look the same as.
• Indenting is part of the Be Consistent rule.
• The jazz font should never be used for music typesetting.
• Never, ever give people pieces of unfolded paper. It crinkles and feels flimsy.
• People in "leadership roles" in the liturgy (priests, deacons, lectors, cantors, choir, etc, or anyone else who has a singing or speaking solo who would need to read from the program) should be given a plain matte-black 1/2" binder with the contents of the program inserted on full-size paper.
• Black ink. Crisp, bright white paper. That is all.
• The worship aide is not your creative outlet. Take a pottery class or something.
• Wordart is never, ever, ever a good idea. There's a special place in Purgatory for people who use Wordart.

Anyone, hate to bump my own post:

I wasn't clear about the format of my worship aid in previous posts. We have now switched to a folded 11x17 sheet that is part of the bulletin; this means that individual sheets are 8.5x11. Do any of you use this format? If so, could you post examples? If for some reason you are uncomfortable doing so, could you send them to my email? Thanks for your help.

One example I HAVE found is from St. James Cathedral, Seattle: http://www.stjames-cathedral.org/Bulletin/bulletin.pdf. Thanks to my friend and sometime poster on this board John Hoffman of Austin, TX for finding me that.

i do 11 x 17 trifolds and once in a while legal size folded in half to create 8.5 x 7 pages

Looks like Bernhard Modern Roman font (or something similar) — a favorite of mine — in that Cathedral of the Madeleine one. Nice.

And nice to see this thread… I must've missed it the first time around. Good to see that lots of others here (Adam!) are as fastidious as I am about design matters.

Here are a few of the Worship aids we use here on Sundays at Holy Trinity Seminary.Respectfully, I think they ought to be done as beautifully as possible, just like the architecture, music and liturgy of the church. Anything in worship should be the best we can possibly do.

I'm not in charge of the worship aids, but for us the Order of Mass (according to the Book of Divine Worship and the Roman Missal, respectively) is not printed in the same document as the hymns/readings/propers/priest's prayers/graduale of the day. The latter has our title page with parish/academy contacts, and bullentin (folded, so that the former and the latter are like the cover of book) and the music, etc. on the other. The graduale has the notation. The text appears to be about 10 font, Times New Roman. On the title page: Xyz Sunday After Epiphany/Pentecost or Sunday of the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ or Pentecost or Ascension of Our Lord or other day. Time of Mass. Date. (all this on same line) During Ordinary Time, a sketch of our church is featured in the top left corner as decoration.

On specials (Evensong, Nine Lessons and Carols, etc) we get better looking programs with cream color title/back page with the parish/academy seal on the back.

Adam, what's the one thing you would change about the services at your parish? Would you spring for better vestments? A decent organ instead of that Hammond? Better dressed parishioners? A larger choir?

I would love to fix all those things.

But if I was allowed to change one and only one thing, I would design the printed worship aides myself.

Four words:

Oi vey.

Ah, well.

Those are beautiful indeed, ghmus7! Very elegantly done.

Some questions: Where do you get those cover art images? And assuming that you do print those in color, is it somewhat expensive? Do you do it in-house?

My all-time favorite serif font is Palatino Linotype, which I use for all my Finale engraving. I really wish that Finale would let the user change the default fonts (from Times New Roman), but - since they haven't granted that wish yet - I have taken the time to change the fonts in the Finale Templates (and, more importantly, in my own templates), so it isn't that much of a hassle anymore. I don't use Book Aniqua (too "bookish" - as if for writing essays) or Garamond (I just like the artfulness of P.L. more).

Chuck

Full justification vs. left justification DEPENDS...
-The length of the text
-The type of content (you wouldn't full-justify Psalms)
-The width of the text block
-The size of the font
-etc
-etc


However....
Do not CENTER-Justify or RIGHT-justify any text longer than two-line.
A ragged-left edge slows down reading, and makes it easy for people to accidentally skip/jump lines.
(Besides that it looks weird.)

I've seen a number of my friends here on this board who center-justify large blocks of text
(all the lines of a hymn, for example).
In love, I must tell you... it looks bad.
Please stop.


Also-
Palatino Linotype is a GREAT font.
It was my go-to font for years until I switched to Caslon for a while.
Now I'm really into Garamond, primarily because I work at an Episcopal Parish (The 1979 BCP was set in a Garamond-derivative).
I find using Garamond with Episcopalians makes them subconsciously think my stuff is official.
If I was working in a Catholic Parish, and making programs, I would try to find a font that matched either:
-The font used in the edition of the Roman Missal you are currently using
-The font used in the hymnal or other hard-back pew-book that is most-used in the parish