How do I correct it so that the 2-bar repeat doesn’t squish together? In other words, I want to expand the width of those 2 bars to make them legible.
Select the last note in the previous bar, and deactivate the Ends voice property in the Properties panel at the bottom of the window.
You don’t need to remove empty bar rests before adding bar repeat regions: Dorico will hide the rests automatically, and leaving them there means Dorico has something to use for spacing calculations.
I really appreciate the help but it doesn’t seem to apply to my case. I removed the 2-bar repeat and it looks like there’s a repeat in at least one bar. I opened the Properties panel and as you can see, Ends Voice is already deactivated. Maybe the rest(s) are not in the right voice to get the bar spacing right? I don’t know how to move them to another voice, though - I’m new to Dorico.
Can you please attach your project here? I can’t tell just from just a screenshot, I’m afraid.
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Thanks Lillie, but I’d rather not attach my project here. I’ll keep working on it. I suspect this issue and a couple of others in this project are due to it being imported from a MusicXML file that was created in Finale (the original Finale file was created in 2012). Thank you again.
It appears you may be trying to cram too much music into one line. Not sure if exporting a Finale XML with system locks could cause this.
But we cannot see what surrounds you problem system from the little you have shown us.
Hope your experimentation discovers what is happening. I am a great believer in trying things out (on a copy of the file, of course).
I understand. I’m just privacy-focused so I’ll look for another way. I’ve seen this same issue with 2 other files I started in Dorico since I reported this (started them fresh - they weren’t Finale MusicXML exports). I’ve reset the layout and even then, not able to get past this issue of some bar repeats (not all) being squished together.
You can always send the project to Lillie or to me via private message if you’re squeamish about posting it publicly. You could also e.g. run one of the musical manipulations over the piece to invert and retrograde all the music, then transform it to a different mode, and then post that version of the project. Even better, cut the project down to the smallest chunk that reproduces the problem (e.g. just export a single layout, and delete all the flows and all the bars in the remaining flow that aren’t required), and post that.
In general, bars can get squished up like that when they contain literally nothing: neither rests nor notes. To contain no rests at all, the Starts voice/Ends voice properties will be set on something (note or rest) either side of the empty bars.
XML imported files can indeed behave differently than native Dorico projects. Perhaps review your Preferences > MusicXML settings, and only keep activated the options you definitely, definitely want to bring across from the MusicXML file. Leaving more options unticked gives Dorico more flexibility to do its Dorico thing on the imported music.
Thanks, everyone. I’ll go through your suggestions as soon as I have more time; for now I’ve just worked around it by writing the notation out instead of bar repeats but yeah, the rests/lack of content in a bar - will look for that.