Occasional overlapping systems

While I’m drafting out this piece I occasionally get systems which overlap (see page 5 bar 211). Sometimes the overlap is even greater and two systems are superimposed.

Overlapping ‘comes and goes’ randomly. I can use gallery view to work on these bars but it’s a bit of a nuisance.

For this draft layout (I just love Dorico layouts :heart:) My layout options are already chosen to get me a biggish space between systems.

So: what goes wrong
Sonata2.1.dorico (1.3 MB)
just in this one place?

A worse example of the same thing. Why does Dorico overlap only this pair of systems ?


Sonata2.1.dorico (1.3 MB)

The only way I can fix this is to keep adding bigger and bigger gaps to my layouts - that seems a ‘funny fix’. Have I missed a flag somewhere in the docs -perhaps a flag that says “never overlap systems”?

Adjusting those values will not enlarge your paper size… If there isn’t enough space, then these values can not be applied.
Go to Engrave Mode, make sure you have Signposts visible.
Read out the percentage at the very bottom of your layout. If the signpost is red and shows a value exceeding 100% then you will choke Dorico.
Slightly reduce staff size until it shows 100% or less.

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In your first example, you’ve just got too many systems on every page.

You could probably make up a bit more space by removing some of the low-hanging rests in additional voices that aren’t necessary.

Is there a reason that you’ve got almost non-existent margins?

I’ve reduced the Minimum Gaps, and increased the inter-system ideal gap to 14.
Sonata2.1.dorico (1.3 MB)

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Thanks as always for helpful answers. My big mistake was using “Minimum Gaps” to do what “inter-system ideal gap” does.

Yes - This is a layout for composing to provide the maximum number of notes displayed on the screen (and yet provide sufficient gap so that dynamics and system track never overlap).

In this layout I’m constantly adjusting the height of this page to put the contiguous passages I’m ‘improving’ in the centre of a page (at large zoom). Much better than trying to work on a passage split between the bottom of one page and the top of the next. Gallery view has its uses but only a few measures are visible (even on large monitor).

(Now a “Gallery View with Wrap” - presenting three to five horizontal “Gallery views,” well vertically separated on the screen, would be a marvellous enhancement).

I have another A4 layout for printing.

Apologies for pedantry, but:

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