I was wondering if it was possible to move a measure to the previous system in Dorico.
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Make into system?
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Select the system break in write mode. Set the grid to the rhythmic value of your bar (whole note if itās C, dotted minim if itās 3/4ā¦) alt-shift-right arrow will move the first measure of the system to the previous system
[Edit] As Dan corrected later, the command to move those breaks is ctrl/cmd-alt-arrow
Marc, I believe it is actually Ctrl-Alt-arrow, which I did not expect.
I would like to see Ctrl-Alt-arrow move the break to the next downbeat, and Shift-Alt-arrow move the break according to the grid. That would seem to be consistent with other uses of those key combinations.
I would think shifting frame and system breaks by whole bars would be the more commonly-desired action.
I think it is a good thing that we can move those breaks wherever we want, although it could be useful to have a command that limits the moves to the full bars, whatever the meter.
You are right, it is cmd/ctrl-alt-arrow the right command, thanks for correcting this!
FWIW I have always thought of these commands as āinsert a system or frame break where you want itā not āmove some music to the next or previous frame.ā (Thatās probably because Iāve used Sibelius more than Finale in the past!)
With the āinsert a breakā interpretation, the idea of ālimiting moves to full barsā had never occurred to me - I just select a bar line and put the break there, or select the middle of a bar if thatās what I want to do.
I do love the flexibility of inserting a break anywhere, including the middle of a bar.
But I rarely need a mid-measure break. My experience has been that I more often want a break on a barline. And for frame breaks in particular, when Iām doing final page layout, itās nice to modify a frame by āadding or subtractingā bars from it, and let Dorico distribute them within the frame automatically to make the frame tighter or looser in its spacing.
Another tip: If I end up with a flow having one system on a new page, then I might be tempted to āforce-squishā bars together throughout the preceding material (as a result of doing this for years in āother softwareā).
But rather than doing that, I now consider tightening or loosening the Note Spacing for the whole Flow (or at some point such as a metre change).
In keyboard scores with several systems per page, the nice thing about tightening or loosening the Note Spacing, compared with using manual frame and system breaks, is that it nudges Dorico to create more or fewer systems for the whole flow, rather than just increasing the vertical spacing on the last page to fill up the space with one or two fewer systems, which often looks poor.
Trying to move a ādanglingā bar in a part to a previous page to avoid a bad page turn. Easy in Sibelius - impossible in Dorico. I tried all the tricks here. Ctrl-Alt-Arrow move the bar but it overwrites what was there, so no help. Does anybody have a quick solution.
dsprung, how exactly are you doing it? Itās not impossible, I promise! 
Click on the beginning of the first bar on the final full page (the page you want to be the final page, I mean). Shift-F to add a frame break. Then from the properties panel, select āWait for next frame break.ā That will force all the remaining music into that frame.
Thatās one way to do it; there are several others.
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Sounds like youāre selecting the actual notes of the bar and moving them, rather than adding a System Break, and moving that.
I agree with Ben that inserting a note-spacing change usually yields more consistent results than moving bars around manually. For those times when I do need to do this, I usually change the grid value to be as close as possible to a whole bar length to make the process of moving a break quicker. Iād like to second Danās suggestion for a key combination for moving breaks one bar at a time.
Wow! ANOTHER seemingly insurmountable problem that was a breeze in Finale. Iām really regretting my Dorico purchase. Is there an easy way to move measures up to the preceding staff. All I had to do in Finale was to select the measure and hit the up arrow. After reading the info in this forum it seems throughly confusing, if not impossible. How (can) is it done? Please help. This is getting frustrating!
- Go to Engrave mode (Cmd+3)
- Select an item in the bar you want to move
- Press , to move to previous system or . to move to the next system.
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The only extra step you need in Dorico is to go to Engrave Mode. Then it is a one key operation.
Dorico separates Write mode from Engrave Mode for a reason.
Thank you SO much. I was really getting frustrated. Your solution worked and gives me hope that there are other things that I am missing.
Join the club!
This topic was made in October 2018, Dorico was still at Version 2 at that point, hence the solution was true to Dorico 2. A quick tip, if you search the forum for similar topics, and you find a post with the exact same question, but posted years ago, itās worth it posting a new topic, because the version the solution was true to was one of the past versions and thereās a 95% chance that the current version of Dorico has already made a better solution.
I actually moved to Dorico from Finale about a few weeks prior to posting this, topic, and while Dorico 2 took longer to achieve this result, it had so many features relevant to me, that blew Finale out of the water, and into Kingdom Come. A great example of this was splitting a staff in divisi, both section divisi and solo divisi. It blew my mind. Finale on the other hand was really making me mad with their licensing issues (v.25), as I had to be on the same wifi I activated the license on in order for it to work. Otherwise, Iād receive a āThis product isnāt lisenced, pleaseā¦ā which if you constantly moved between home, college, and camp work in the summer, that irritates the fire out of you. Tech support never gave me a permanent solution.
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