Chord symbol collisions - minimum distance option?

Hi all, just browsing through the help and settings and couldn’t find an answer. After increasing the chord symbol font size, they’re now are a little too close in some places.
Is there a way to set a minimum distance or padding for chord symbols?
Thanks!

Have you checked in Library > Engraving Options > Chord Symbols ? Most likely in the Position section on that page.

Hi @Lillie_Harris!
I checked there, but I don’t see any options for gaps or padding before/after chords, only above and below… and in between. :face_with_peeking_eye: :laughing:
In case a picture helps, I’m trying to improve the look of this without having to decrease the font size or move the chord to another rhythmic position.
image

There seems to be a rather large gap after the eighth note on beat 3, following the Gm7 chord. Obviously there is either music in other systems, or lyrics, or something else accounting for the spacing issues here. If you could share a cutdown version of your file that exhibits this collision, we might be able to find a solution, but it’s hard to tell what’s going on without a complete picture.

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Ah, fair point. There are indeed lyrics. How’s this:
image

It’s still hard to know without seeing a file, or at the very least the entire system, along with the percentage that it’s filled (or overfilled). I suspect this system is filled significantly over 100%, and unfortunately when that happens, Dorico’s spacing tends to go a bit haywire. As long as my system is under 100% Dorico does a pretty good job with default spacing as shown below at 97.2%:

Once I fill the system over 100% there’s not enough room for all the elements and Dorico makes compromises, some good, some not so good, like in this system at 132.7%

If I had to guess, I would imagine your system as pictured is substantially over 100%, and that is leading to the collision issue with the chord symbol. If you reduce your rastral size in Layout Options/Page Setup/Space Size to allow the system to be under 100%, then I assume your issue will be resolved. If reducing the size isn’t a viable option, then I’d consider either changing the layout of that page to allow the systems to be spaced appropriately, playing around with some Engrave/Note Spacing Change settings, or just resigning yourself to the fact that you’re going to have to do a lot of manual spacing tweaks on that system.

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You’re right, that system was at 115%. I thought it was interesting that they were touching in mine, but yours at 132% still had some space between the chord symbols, so I played around with different fonts and that definitely makes a surprisingly big difference.
I took your suggestion to decrease the rastral size, and changed the font too.
Thanks!

I guess the short answer to my first question is no.

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