As you can see from the image, I am trying to have 1/2 of a 4/4 bar at the end of the upper line, and the second half at the beginning of the next line. I feel the spacing is much nicer and easier to read.
Unfortunately, I can’t find a way to make the barline invisible at the end of the top line. Deleting the barline with backspace makes Dorico insist on treating it as a 4/4 bar for layout. I’ve tried inserting a system break where the deleted barline is, but that just moves both of the 2/4 bars.
Hi! It is not possible to make an invisible barline, no.
However! The good news is this isn’t Sibelius, so you don’t need to split the bar! Just write it in 4/4 as usual (i.e. get rid of your hidden time signatures) then create a system break in the middle of the bar. To do this, in Engrave Mode just select the note you would like to be on the next line and press “create System break” - voila, open system, no barline.
(if it creates the break at the barline then there’s an option you need to turn off in preferences)
And don’t forget that new in D4, there is a preference as to whether or not dorico will allow you to split a measure this way. The new default is that it won’t, so you may need to go in and disable that preference before this works properly.