But if I were to adjust the notes one by one, it would be too troublesome. I tried selecting a piece to move the spacing, but the effect was not good. Can someone tell me how to set it up so that it won’t look so ugly? thank you!
You see at the very end, that your system is overcrowded by 193%!! The goal is, to get this number down to 100%.
So don’t think of adjusting notes manually, because you are using Dorico here.
Go to Layout Options
1.) ->Note Spacing
(in your example there are hardly any spaces between the notes, so:)
Reduce to something incredible small. Default is 4, you will have to go down to 2 or even lower.
2.) Reduce the staff size (rastral). Choose a smaller staff.
3.) Reduce Page margins
4.) You might want to change the Notehead style to the smaller one (Dorico uses Large note heads as default). You can change this under Engraving Options.
5.) If that is not enough go to Library->Note head sets, change the size of the Default Note heads.
After tweaking all these settings, check that your percentage is down from 193% to maximum 100%.
And finally, if you upload those bars here, you can give us something to play with
I might add to input the remaining notes, adjust stem directions and input slurs along with all the articulations.
Dorico might actually change the spacing to make room for these items.
Also: Are you sure both examples are the same page size? Could the original be like a larger size and in landscape orientation?
John Barron did an excellent tutorial called “From plate to page” in which he also aims to emulate plate engraving (including the tight spacing) in Dorico. I can highly recommend it:
Very awesome, this should go a long way towards emulating that style!!
Not something I have to deal with on a daily basis, but the classic/classy look of those hand-engraved plates is very beautiful!