Hello.
I am transcribing a piece and I want to leave these four measures in the same system to respect the original arrangement edition, but they look like this:
How can I redistribute the notes so that they are not so close together?
Thank you.
As you can see, there’s not really any extra space on that system. Dorico thinks it’s 117% full.
Try making your page margins smaller (so that the system can get longer) and/or making your space size smaller (so that the staff and the notes get smaller and take up less room).
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Yes - if you’re trying to copy another edition verbatim, measure the staff size in the original, and use something roughly the same.
Computer engraving is usually capable of getting more notes across a page than traditional have engraving (for the same size), which suggests that the original was smaller – but hand engraving can usually get more on the page vertically, by shortening stems, flattening slurs, and other tricks.
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- Go to Engrave Mode.
- Click on the Note Spacing Tool on the left - Doing this will show little boxes on top of each note and barline.
- Click on the box of something you want to move.
- Actually move the thing(s) with the key combo ⌥◀️or ⌥▶️. You add shift to move by longer jumps.
Why this is so buried is beyond me.
Apart from the suggestions that have been made, you could reduce the gap left of accidentals by a (very) small value: Engraving Options – Accidentals – Gaps, the very first option.
Because there are much better tools to use for the vast majority of situations (engraving options, space size, note spacing…) as others have already mentioned.
I humbly disagree - To my very limited knowledge, any other way I’ve found of moving items horizontally requires entering a numeric value in a box and hitting Ok/Apply. You do not see the changes “live” as you are making them and are basically relying on guessing. My whole point is to not rely on Dorico’s engine since it’s what created the problem. Especially for a single accidental or barline.
Please tell me - Is there another way to have a “live” instant preview of changes as they are being made?
Hi @bajodorado, as said the manual forcing of the 4 bars in one system gives 116% system fullness, so the automatic note spacing struggles a little bit.
Beyond the useful suggestions above, here another possible approach:
I reproduced your case, and found that a local editing of the ledger lines length (for the whole system) gives some good result. You can then further adjust the ledger lines length for singular notes, (for example shorten the right ledger line for the note nr.11 in first bar, or the note nr. 4 in second bar):
Reduce locally the ledger lines length (right and left):
And. after just two touches in the local notes spacing, and a little decrease in the global spacing gaps, I have the result below (fullness is now 111%, from the beginning 116%):
Further workflow:
Result:
Dorico file example:
note sapcing with overfull system.dorico (569.3 KB)
Add-on: there is also global option for Minimum distance between adjacent rhythmic items that can be helpful:
When you click Apply in Layout Options, the change is made and the dialog stays open, so if you haven’t chosen the right value, just do it again – which is really the same as moving the things in Note Spacing: you move it once, see if that’s enough, then do it again.
You are right that small changes for fine-tuning sometimes needs to be applied manually, but if you find yourself manually adjusting large areas of the music, then you’re fighting Dorico, rather than instructing it to do what you want. And that will be more work overall.
The vast majority of my scores have no manual Note Spacing or Staff Spacing manual adjustments; and those that do only require a handful of changes.
Once you’ve done a few scores, and ‘got your eye in’, you’ll be familiar with which values work for what.
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