I’m importing many xml files of voice/piano music into Dorico. I have a question about how Dorico flows measures across systems and systems across pages. Sometimes Dorico moves measures to the next system without a system break, and sometimes it moves systems to the next page without a frame break. I like it when it does this. Other times, if there are no system breaks, it smashes all the measures onto a single system; and, if there are no frame breaks, it puts all systems onto a single page. Sometimes, the casting off settings have no affect on this.
I suspect there’s something I’m missing. Would someone please point me in the right direction?
Uncheck all the Preferences>MusicXML>Import options.
That will give Dorico the freedom to apply its own settings (which you appear to like).
If you force Dorico to add system breaks and frame breaks to match the original, if/when you later remove some of these, things can appear to go dramatically wrong! (though they are easily fixable)
On its own, Dorico will always flow music into new systems and frames. When you see music squished up like this, it’s because there’s a frame or system break that has its “Wait For Next Break” property set. You can select the break at the start of the mess, open the bottom Properties panel, and untick that property.
This can happen with a piece that you’ve worked on entirely in Dorico, as a result of certain formatting options; it can also happen with an XML import. (Imports often have issues.) For your imports, @Janus has indicated one way to get better results when you import; if you’ve already imported, you can select the first system break, hit Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+A a couple of times (Select More) to select all of them, and then delete. Repeat for frame breaks.
If you can’t see the signposts for the breaks that cause the music to be squished onto a single system, make sure you don’t have them hidden via the View > Signposts menu.