I’m writing a pretty standard 4 voice piece, the staffs/systems overlap (this is the default layout).
Why is something so basic so hard?
What can I do about it?
Welcome to the forum, @Gargamel!
It’s a little hard to tell what’s going on just from a partial screenshot. Can you share a screenshot of a full page in Engrave mode – or better yet, share your Dorico project file here?
Off the top of my head, if you’re only getting 4 bars per system across the page, then that’s probably too large a space size, and you’d be better off making everything a little smaller (Layout Options > Page Setup > Space Size). It also looks like something is making your page overfull (percentage in the lower left corner of the page in Engrave mode), maybe casting off or something else.
But you’ll get a better answer if you can show us more of what’s going on.
4 Likes
… and please make sure all signposts are activated when taking the screenshot … 
2 Likes
Dorico will follow the settings that you’ve chosen in Layout Options, plus any other things like System Breaks that you’ve added.
Engrave mode will show you how full the page is (vertically), and how full each system is (horizontally). Sometimes, Dorico will put slightly more or less systems on the page than you might want (due to complex reasons).
From a quick look at the screenshot, I’d suggest that the Staff Size is quite large on the page. No default size will be right for every project, so that’s one of the main things to set.
You might want to try reducing the size a bit, and see whether that looks better on the page (while still being sufficiently legible for the job).
Alternatively, if there are too many systems on this page, then just add a Frame Break at the start of the last system to push it to the next page.
1 Like
Thanks so much, this really resolved the overlap, I’m currently transitioning from MuseScore, and never experienced issues like this, and on the other hand, still testing out before buying, so don’t have all the fancy engraving settings.
For future adventurers I would like to point out that using the “Gallery view” / “Fill view” also cleared any overlap, but in the gallery view Cmd+Shift+L → Page Setup → Space Size
That’s because in Galley view, Dorico isn’t trying to fit systems onto a page – it just displays what you have, with a fixed space between staves and systems. (It’s actually possible for Galley view to show collisions as well – say, if your violin were playing below middle C and your viola were playing above C5.)
1 Like