Hello, I’m looking for ideas on cleaning up parts. I have a tune with a section containing alternating 5/4 and 4/4 measures. It’s great when looking at the score, but looking at parts, it means that every single measure, even for instruments that aren’t playing, is uncompressed.
I could change it to 9/4 - if I do that, and to still visually indicate the same kind of implied rhythmic emphasis, I could also add a dashed vertical bar at the right spot in the 9/4 bars - but if I do this, the parts still get the “compressed” rest stuff uncompressed.
Is there a way to have the “compress” algorithm ignore dashed vertical bars, or maybe someone has a different idea?
If you input bars in 9/4 with a dashed barline between the 5th and 6th beats (by typing ‘5/4|4/4’ in the popover), you’ll get what you want for the parts, if I’ve understood your request correctly. To display 9/4 instead of 5/4+4/4, check ‘Combine Compatible Aggregates’ in the Properties panel.
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Thank you, I think you do understand. But I’m not getting that result. See here, I set up the time signature and added the dotted bar in the first measure:
I’m also wondering why it is adding that additional “9/4 (q, 3+2+2+2)” thing. Looks like it’s actually considering that as a different measure (one that does not have enough beats??) rather than just a visual indicator.
I see. It’s true that I started from an empty project, which makes things easier. Changing time signatures in an existing piece is often a challenge in Dorico, plenty of threads are related to this in this forum.
Something that might work in your case, I think (but you should maybe wait for more experienced users to suggest alternatives!) would be to do the following:
- Delete the time signatures for the entire passage you want to modify.
- The result is an open meter measure with notes and rhythms preserved.
- At the beginning of this measure, enter the time signature you want (5/4|4/4)
At least in this very simple example, it works 
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Aha! That works a lot better.

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Thank you very much, that is actually a better solution than I hoped for!
For clarity, I did not end up having to delete ALL the time signatures. I deleted most of them and simply edited the first one to the formatting you describe.
And now I also know that (5/4|4/4) creates a hidden time signature, whereas 5/4|4/4 creates a visible one.
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