Very often when you check parts they are 1 page and maybe 4 bars or 8 bars on the next page. I know you can try and shrink space and note size etc to force the music to just be on 1 page - but it takes a little time and you have to go through each part and do that -
however if there was some sort of auto control on the engrave page where Dorico used its best guess in the background to size things it may save time. - a kind of macro slider that as you pull it left (or right if you want to allow the music to fill more space) the music is adjusted until it fits a page it would be a great time saving feature.
If the entire Part fits on 1 page (or could do), then you can simply reduce the inter-system gap in the Layout Options. And/Or reduce the Note Spacing value, so that everything’s a little bit tighter.
Otherwise, use Make Into Frame as said above.
Don’t use the Staff Space/Note Spacing “sub-modes” of Engrave mode to do large-scale layout adjustment. Think of them as for fine tuning and small adjustments only.
Cool I know there are tricks you can do - inter system gap, note spacing, note size etc - just wondering is there a macro tool that could make it a simple and reduce time tinkering with dialog boxes and functions.
Yeah, I wouldn’t call these “tricks” – these are the fundamental controls for laying out the music as you want it.
You can set a value and click “Apply”, keeping the Layout Options window open; and then change the value and do it again. Not quite a slider, but reasonably quick once you get used to appropriate values.
Also, make sure everything is in its proper place. If a rehearsal mark and staff or system text collide, that rehearsal mark gets pushed into the stratosphere, making the intersystem gap too wide. I spend a bit of time pushing things around to another beat in Write mode, so that I have little to do in Engrave mode.
I feel like overall disabling collision avoidance along with hiding an element should be made available to every element on a page, best inside the “Common” section.