Colliding systems

Systems in my (very long) score are colliding to an unusable degree because Dorico constantly insists on squeezing itself to death to fit as much musical content it can on each page; even it’s complaining about itself at the bottom right.

Attempting to put in frame breaks manually is almost impossible, because each time I do the systems squeeze themselves into the next page and the staffs overlap so badly I can’t even select where I want the next frame break. Changing system spacing, minimum staff spacing, etc. settings are making no difference whatsoever.

Please help.

Welcome to the forum @Hundotte!

Have you tried adjusting the staff size? Even just a smidge?

Can you attach your project, or an excerpt that you have a problem with? This will be the quickest way to find a solution.

Hey there. Thanks for the prompt reply.

I’ve just tried adjusting the staff size and indeed it does make things way better. Though it does have the consequence of causing my previous page to become oversquished, so I’ll have to find some way to deal with that as well.

Do you know any other way that could fix this? Thanks!

I’ve also attached the project file if you’d like to take a look.
3 Keys to Happiness.dorico (823.5 KB)

Firstly, you should update to the latest version.

Secondly, do you just want two systems per page? If so, do you know how to do this?

Hi, sorry for the late response.

I do indeed know how to have just two systems per page, and I’ve been using that so far to continue work on the piece. But it also presents a future problem, where I would like to hide the empty marimba staves when I finish notating the piece which would leave lots of free space in these long sections if there were only 2 systems per page. So I don’t think that’s a very good solution in the long run.

Are there any other ways I could fix this spacing problem? What is causing this in the first place? Thanks so much for your help thus far.

My guess it’s something to do with this:

I think that your best option would be to fiddle with your Ideal Gaps, Staff Size and Frame Breaks, and try to come up with something that works best. I don’t know what else to say, sorry.

Have you actually finished entering the notes? Don’t do any layout until you’ve got all the notation in.

I’d agree that you need to reduce the Staff Size - try Size 4 instead of 3.