Gap between staffs

Dorico
1

I’m using Dorico Elements, so I don’t have Engrave mode. I have the two staffs of an organ score, and I need to widen the gap between them to accommodate lower notes on the treble staff. Can anyone please let me know how to do that?

Thanks

2

Layout Options (Cmd/Ctrl-Shift-L) > Vertical Spacing > Ideal Gaps, Braced staff to braced staff.
Typically Dorico will automatically create the extra space automatically when you add the lower notes on the treble staff. If you’re trying to click notes in with the mouse, you may struggle - either put them in an octave up and then use Ctrl/Cmd-Shift-Down to shunt them down an octave, or use the keyboard to get notes on the page.

3

Thanks for your reply. I’m not familiar with note entry from the keyboard, but I need to learn this. I’m new to Dorico, having used Overture for many years, and it’s a steep learning curve, especially when you’re trying to do work at the same time!

4

Staff? Staves? Staves I think …

Don’t worry it comes pretty fast and there’s great search bars littered through the software. Main concepts are that its’ not truly WSIWYG but data entry like La/TeX (e.g. you have to sometimes go out of your way to stop Dorico from doing the right thing), and that Flow!=Movement

5

I’ve been tasked with providing a vocal score where there is a wide gap between systems, and I’ve managed to achieve this quite nicely with a combination of Layout Options settings. But although the braced staff to braced staff setting itself is set quite low (maybe, indeed, a bit too low for some circumstances), there are pages where the gap between the two staves of the braced staff is really wide. I don’t suppose there’s a maximum (as well as the minimum) setting for this?

6

You might want to set your vertical spacing values such that only systems are vertically justified, but staves within systems are not justified (meaning that braced staves won’t be included in justification, and instead use their Ideal Gap). Edit: although, I did write that braced staves aren’t vertically justified either way…

Or, on staves where the gap is really wide (perhaps because there’s 1 fewer system on those pages?) you could use a separate master page where the music frame starts lower and stops higher on the page, meaning there’s a smaller space to fill with music and staves will be closer together (but further from the top/bottom edges of the page overall).

1 Like
7

Thanks, Lillie. That second suggestion looks promising, though I have yet to dip my toe into the waters of custom master pages.