Hello!
I’ve been trying to find out if there’s a way to select multiple staves at once and change all of them to a smaller size simultaneously without having to click and change each individual one. Is this possible?
Thanks!
Unfortunately not yet. You have to invoke the context menu for each staff, which can be quite a long task if the score is big and long…
You can change all the staves in one go with a System Break.
Yes, but what you do then is change the global space size. It will also change the text size if it’s not absolute. It’s a very nice feature though, but not the same purpose.
If you need to stretch some staves (editorial à défaut for instance), you will need to do one staff at a time…
I’d be interested to see an example when you would have several staves of a different size to several others.
The obvious one would be something like a score for a piano quintet, where the piano staves are full size and the string staves are smaller.
But if there’s only one that’s a different size, then you’d change that one, and have the others as the default.
It still requires some manual investment, but choosing the default staff size for the layout that works for the most staves and then manually changing the size of the smaller number of staves is one way to make your life easier.
I’ve encountered this in larger works with a number of optional staves or a separate section of players whose parts are handled by a separate conductor or similar.
1 Like
I’m working right now on an opera where you have a stage orchestra for one number (with folklore instruments) that can be replaced by the “normal” orchestra in case you don’t have the musicians/instruments for that stage orchestra. In this case, all the staves from the normal orchestra (in the pit) are made 75%. And as I chose to have all the numbers (over 24, for over an hour and a half of music) of the whole opera in one file, each operation takes time…
1 Like
Pragmatically, this may be right. But in light of Dorico’s semantic philosophy (and notational philosophy in general), this approach is really doing the exact opposite of what is needed.
I often do this for score reductions. WWs reduced on to a grand staff, brass reduced on to another, etc. The original music is at a smaller size for reference, and the reduction staves are larger for study.
EDIT: As an example, here’s a sample page of a reduction I did of a well-known Ellington piece.
2 Likes
So there IS an option to globally change all of the staves in a layout to one size? Where would I find that?
Your options for staff size are:
- For all staves in the layout by default
- For all staves in the layout from a system/frame break
- For individual staves throughout the layout
Apologies if changing the default staff size for all staves in a layout was what you were originally asking - I read your first post to mean you were seeking to change a selection of multiple staves, but not all, to a different size.