On page 3 of the attached project Dorico suddenly doubled the size of the measures. Can someone please walk me through why this happened and how to stop it? Also, Why, on page 13 did Dorico radically increase the space between systems, and how do I prevent this?
Mendelson Exercises Project2.dorico (1.2 MB)
The answer is hidden in plain sight: The last 2 bars on page 3 total more than 100% of the system width. If you select the first and last notes of those 2 bars and force them together with Make Into System, they total 100.7% – and you get collisions.
You certainly don’t need to label every system “Pno.” The quickest fix for this would be to go into Layout Options > Staves and Systems, and set Staff labels on subsequent systems to None. Of course there are several other ways – reduce the staff size, or the margins, change the note spacing rule, etc.
But the change I really recommend is that you put all the notes in the last bar in the same key enharmonically. You’re in B major but some of the notes are written as flats and naturals which doesn’t read sensibly and also takes up too much space.
As for page 13, go to Layout Options > Vertical Spacing > Vertical Justification and increase the first percentage. 60% means the page has to be at least 60% full for vertical justification to operate. Increase that to 80% and Dorico no longer stretches those systems apart.
1 Like
Mark
Thanks so much for your guidance. I just got back to this task and your solutions worked perfectly. I am wondering if there is any pathway I should be taking where I would have learned these solutions. I have seen quite a few of the videos but, since I don’t use Dorico every day, I forget a lot about the hierarchy (Flows, projects, what params get applied to everything/some things, etc)
In this case…spacing items using preferences…where would I start in the world of videos / online manual to get an overview of these settings?
Anyway, thanks for explaining what the settings actually do as well as the settings I shoul be using. That extra info was really informative.
Mark - Dorico is adding clefs and meter changes for the “next” exercise at the end of previous exercises. I asked ChatGPT and it told me to split the flow to avoid the anticipatory meters and clefs. However, since the exercises are grouped by topic, I now have more flows than topics .How do I keep the large topics and eliminate the flows? Should I simply title each flow within the topic?
Mendelson Exercises Project2.dorico (1.3 MB)
I don’t know offhand if this property is in the version of Dorico which you are using, but in version 5.1.51 Pro (the latest update), it is possible to select the time signature at the end of a system, open the Properties panel (the lower zone) and enable Cautionary at end of system (then choose Hide if it is not selected by default).
I did this in the first version of the project which you posted, and it went from
to
while still retaining the time signature at the start of the next system, which I assume would be the typical place where a new flow would start if having separate flows was the desired course of action.
The same procedure can be used to hide a key signature at the end of a system.
In both situations, make sure that you select only what you want to hide, ie the time signature OR the key signature, not both at the same time.
I do have the current version of Dorico pro. This is awesome Steven. Thank-you. I will try it. Now I have to un-split the flows I created to avoid the cautionary meters, ec. How do I do that?
From your original post, download the project which you attached. If it is not the full document, then have a look in the Backup Projects folder inside the Dorico Projects folder which is in the User’s Documents folder (I’m on a Mac, sorry I can’t help with the location on a Windows machine but the concept is the same - do a search if you need to). The Backup Projects folder will have a few previous versions of the project. With any luck, there might be one there that pre-dates your splitting it into flows.
Another option, but with a bit more manual work involved, is to start a new project and copy and paste from the “Flow’d” version into the new one, one flow’s worth at a time. Insert system breaks and frame breaks once all the content is in place.
Steven - I used the History window and went back in time and the flows were re-united. Anyway…it worked! the cautionary clefs and meters signatures are gone. Thank-you!!!