What would be the best way to input a large block of text like in the example? If I insert it as a text item it either extends off the page or pushes the staves below too close together. If I insert it as a Text Frame in engrave mode the music doesn’t adjust to compensate for it. Is there a more efficient method I am not aware of that would work better?
Example.pdf (80.6 KB)
It should just shift the following systems down (and onto the next page if necessary). Have you got something constraining the page in some way (eg keep together)?
Well, it doesn’t shift the staves down at all if I insert the text on the top system. If I entered it on one of the lower systems it does push the rest of them down, but the spacing isn’t very good. The lower two systems on the page became way too close together.
As I said. Something is constraining. Perhaps you have fixed the number of systems per frame (ctrl-shift-L Casting off)
Hmm, what else could it be? I don’t think the number of systems is locked because I never set that, and, there are only two systems on the first page, and there on the others.
Could you post your project (the part that that shows the problem)? It’s so much easier to diagnose from a file!
Sure! Here it is. As you can see the text extends to off the page. Also, it pushes the text that says “Last x” and “(Cornelia)” off the page above them, but I want that text to be right above the staff, not up above the dialog text.
Rainbow Valley - 01_Piano-Vocal - Flow 1.dorico (1.5 MB)
I’ll try to look at your file in a bit. But in the meantime, when text items are moving to places you don’t want or causing other things to move, you can turn off collision avoidance.
Select the text item
Go to Engrave Mode
Open the Properties Panel
Turn the Avoid Collisions switch on but do not tick the checkbox
You can manually position the text where you want
I think it’s a simple question of playing with space size.
Thanks. That’s all fine and good, but is very specific to this project. If I had a project where the layout of systems I had before was the only option I would be out of luck, unless there is some other way to accomplish this.
Is this what you are trying to achieve?
The first picture is the page as it appeared when I opened your project, while the second is what it looked like after I applied the steps below.
In Write mode:
If you need to, you can adjust the position of the block of text in Engrave mode.
No, I want the text above the staff but for everything below it to move down so that the text doesn’t collide with the top of the page.
I was simply going by the appearance of the PDF that was in your original post, ie with the text between systems.
Have a look at this edited version of your file.
Rainbow Valley - 01_Piano-Vocal - Flow 1 edited.dorico (1.5 MB)
Here’s another version, edited differently.
Rainbow Valley - 01_Piano-Vocal - Flow 1 - edited 2.dorico (1.5 MB)
That looks perfect! Thanks! How did you do the first one? It looks like you didn’t have to adjust the music frame, which would be ideal, though that method looks like it could work as well.
In Engrave mode, Staff Spacing sub-mode, I used the various edit handles on the left-hand end of each staff to move the music downwards and adjust the spacing between staves. As I have previously not had much need to do this sort of thing, some degree of trial-and-error was needed in figuring out what each edit handle moved and what else was affected. The Undo command received a lot of use!
If that’s a flow heading at the top of the page, you can also control that gap by increasing the flow heading bottom margin (gap between bottom of flow heading and top of highest staff in the frame). You can do that throughout the layout or on individual pages.
When moving staves manually up/down, be aware that those offsets are likely to be lost if the page number changes, e.g. if you later insert a title page at the beginning of the layout.
I’m not entirely sure whether it is a flow heading or not. It’s the header of the default page template. Is that the same thing functionally?
I know I turned off flow headings, so I’m assuming this is different.
No, then that’s different. Here’s a diagram of different margins – if you don’t want to lower the top of a music frame (which can be a very effective way of controlling where music appears) you can also change the music frame margins for individual frames.
Great! That’s really helpful. Thanks.
