It seems to me that the Music Frame Top Margin in Dorico is fixed, manually, in Layout Options. In my screenshot here, after adding dynamics and tempo markings to the first system, I must manually increase the Music Frame Top Margin, or manually move the system down to avoid overflowing the top of the music frame.
This is so Finale-ish. I am surprised that Dorico is not smart enough to start its layout from the top of those above-staff markings instead of the top line of the staff. Am I not understanding something, or is this a reasonable feature request, or can someone make my day and tell me that I will find this fixed if I upgrade to Dorico 6?
Hi @jerrykrinock, the upper music frame margin (that you set globally in Layout Options) is the distance between the upper line of the first system in that frame, and the upper border of the music frame.
If you happen to have (for example in the first page) many items above your music (dynamic, chord symbols, rehearsal marks, etc…) that take more space than the current music frame margin height, you can easily edit your First page template, to lower the upper border of the music frame, so that all those items have enough space.
Thank you, @Christian_R. I understand how to make the manual adjustments.. I’m just wondering why Dorico does not measure its margin from the top above-staff object instead of the top staff line. I just tried an experiment, piling up a bunch of dynamics, tempo changes, chord symbols and repeat symbols on top of the second or third system. Dorico very smartly increases the vertical spacing between systems to accommodate the pile in all systems except the top system in a frame.
Because this would cause (having probably every page different material) a visual inconsistency and differentiation from page to page, between the positions of the upper systems in subsequent pages. (For what I remember*)
You can combine my suggested method, with increasing the upper Music Frame Margin in layout options. Just consider that this change is global (for that Layout), and will be also inherited by all subsequent Music Frames/Pages.
Traditionally, the top staff and bottom stave would be placed at a consistent height on every page, and sufficient margins were provided for any matter above and below.
If you don’t care about the top margin consistency on every page, I found a way to use Dorico 6’s Cutaway feature to avoid collisions with the top margin. If only certain pages need this, it can be used selectively on only certain systems with manual staff visibility. One limitation is that this method can only be used in layouts without multi bar rests, since cutaways and multi bar rests can’t be used in the same layout.
Beside the first page adjustment explained in my previous post, another common method for pages with much material above the first staff, is to create a customized Default page template, with the music frame’s upper edge lowered a little bit. Then you can insert a Page Template Change for that page/s, assigning that customised Default Page Template:
I’m happy for Dorico to intelligently adjust some things, but I certainly do not want it changing the vertical positioning of staves without my explicit direction.
