Number of bars per staff

Hi,

I’m coming from Finale 25. I use it mainly for Guitar notation.

So far, I love Dorico Pro 3.5! The only thing I have not been able to figure out is how to define the number of bars per staff. (Finale has this option under Utilities->Fit measures… where you can select a region (by highlighting with the mouse) and then you can specify how many bars you want on that selection.

I can do it globally in Dorico with “Staves and Systems → Cast Off - Fixed number of bars per staff”, but I want to be able to do it by sections. For example, I want to do something like the following:

First two staves: 8 measures/bars
Next two staves: 4 measures
Then back to 8… and near the end, only 2 as I have many notes.

Is this even possible?

Much appreciated.

Welcome to the forum! Unfortunately changing the casting off by section isn’t currently possible. What I’d suggest is set the layout casting off to what best fits (i.e. applies to the most systems) and then manage the rest manually using system breaks. It sounds like in your example, setting the casting off to 8 bars and then inserting system breaks to split into 4 and then 2 would be simplest.

Thank you. Will give that a try. Much appreciated.

@Lillie Harris, Thank you so much. That did the trick! Just wanted to confirm the solution. Best regards.