Hey yall - Dorico 5 user here. Sorry if this has already been asked - feel free to direct me to the right thread if so.
Does Dorico have an “optimize staff spacing” function like Sibelius 6, where all selected staves are arranged equal distance from each other on the page/frame in one click? Right now I am dragging them all individually, and I suspect there’s an easier method that I’m missing.
Let me know, thanks!
Yes, check out Layout Options–Vertical Spacing–Vertical Justification. You can set the percentage threshold values above which Dorico will vertically justify the page by expanding the systems (or staves). You can set the percentage to a lower value to make sure your pages justify.
Thx for the reply - I’m not sure that’s the fix I’m looking for though. I’m looking for a way to quickly resolve staff spacing issues within a frame - see the attached screenshot as an example. Is there a way to select all the staves in this frame, hit a key command/function, and have it automatically spread out equally?
There are other issues here. Can you please show engrave mode? Your system may be overfull (beyond 100%), in which case you could start by reducing the inter-space gap. Or perhaps you have also some staff spacing manual adjustment that needs to be removed.
Also, the rehearsal mark at 5 is too low. My big-picture suggestion is to select everything and reset all positioning, then experiment with Ideal Gaps in Layout Options. The rule of thumb is to work with global/automatic settings first, and resort to manual adjustments only as needed.
Dorico does this automatically, on the fly. There just be some other issue here. Hard to say without the file, but what happens if you go to vertical spacing mode in engrave mode?
I’m really struggeling with the automatic staff spacing. I’ve been playing with the settings for hours but when spacing works for one page, it doesn’t work for another page. In all tutorials they tell you to “let Dorico take care of it” and “not to do it manually because it will cause problems” but the reality of layout is that there is not one approach that works for the whole composition (unless it is really, really simple and straightforward)…Overall I miss the flexibility to change stuff manually, in that respect constantly switching between “write” and “engrave” is also really anoying. I don’t see any advantages to that approach. If anyone would have some tips regarding this, that would be very welcome since replies from the support are really slow (if they come at all) and mostly incomplete…
In general, the best way to handle these things is to adjust Dorico’s settings so that the algorithm produces the results you want (and then maybe make a few small tweaks at the end). I find that I almost never have to adjust staff spacing by hand.
Can you upload a few pages of a project that doesn’t look the way you want it to, and describe what you’re trying to achieve? Someone here can take a look and make suggestions.
Edit: I’ll add that it’s generally best to get everything entered in Write mode before you start working in Engrave mode. If you’re always switching back and forth and making layout adjustments as you go, you will likely make it more difficult for yourself down the road.
Hi, thanks for reaching out!
Here’s an example: The first one is before manual editing.
This kind of process I had to go through for practically every page. When I change the settings, other pages come out worse. This is my first real Dorico-project since I’m currently switching from Finale but my general concern is that Dorico relies, in many aspects of engraving, on “one setting that fits everything”. To my experience that translates to “one setting that nothing really well”.
I always get very suspicious when music-software promises you that you can solve everything with a single push of a button. At that moment you usually hear the marketing department speaking… 
Here’s another, maybe more subtle example: The first one is ‘before’
Concerning the editing: if you want to make small local adjustments to the way Dorico displays things like a hairpin, the exact Location of a dynamic, etc…it’s not very practical to postpone it until the end, especially when you’re working on a large score. The chances that you overlook these details in a second phase are practically 100% so, in my experience, it’s better to put things right while you’re at it. When working in galley-view in Write mode it’s really annoying to switch to Engrave-mode constantly. I don’t see what disadvantages there would be to being able to simply grab an item in write-mode and put it exactly where you want it.
I really appreciate you taking the time to help me and I’m sorry if I’m complaining a bit…the past few weeks have been very frustrating…oh how I do miss Finale… 
Sorry, I wasn’t clear: It would be helpful if you could upload an actual Dorico project containing a few pages that you’d like to improve, so that someone can open the project and play with settings.
But I’ll note a couple of things. In your first pair of screenshots, the RH page is more than 100% full (red indicator in the bottom left). Maybe you did something manually to force these two systems onto one page? If a page is overfull like this, then Dorico thinks it can’t be ideally spaced according to the settings you have in Layout Options; it will do the best it can, but there are no guarantees. And in the second pair, if you’re looking to adjust the space between systems, there are probably some settings that can get you closer to your desired look and leave you with less to adjust.
Many of us (including me) came here from Finale, and the best advice I can give you is not to expect to work the same way in Dorico that you did in Finale – they are different pieces of software. Once you get used to Dorico’s approach, which can take a little while, I think you’ll see the benefits. One of the nice things is that there’s not “one setting” – there are a whole bunch of settings that work together and give you pretty fine-grained control over defining the overall look that you’re going for.
There have been plenty of discussions about this sort of thing, some of them pretty recent, that you can find by searching the forum. Different people have different ways of working; I generally like being able to focus on the music itself at first, and the look of things on the next pass. As others have said, one more pass is one more chance to proofread! But if you find yourself switching frequently, you may find it easier to open a second document window and keep one in Write and one in Engrave; some users even use two monitors for this. In any case, the Write/Engrave distinction is baked into the core of the Dorico philosophy and is unlikely to change.
Hi,
Thanks again for your reply. I would like to apologize in advance if I am going to whine below, you are definitely not the right person to do that to… 
You may be right that it will be a learning process anyway, I hope that some things will go more smoothly in the long run.
Is there a way that I can send my file to you in a PM? I don’t really feel comfortable putting my files on a public forum where I have no control whatsoever over who has access to them. Very often I (and probably many of us) have signed an NDA, sharing something publicly is often not an option. Normally you would need a helpdesk for that, but unfortunately they don’t respond very quickly (or not at all).
Regarding the overcrowded pages, I had manually lowered the bottom system on those pages because, for example on page 31, the second system was through the first while the “inter-system-gap” is set to 13 spaces.
At the same time, there was still a large margin at the bottom of the page.
In the meantime, I have also experimented with quite a few different settings, but I rarely got the desired result. If this worked for one page, the other pages became worse.
I had similar problems with the settings for the placement of dynamics, hairpins, playing techniques… A setting that works in one place often does not work on the next page or even the next bar. In itself this does not have to be a problem (you also had to correct that manually in Finale for instance), the only pity is that manual adjustment is very cumbersome, because it seems to be against the Dorico philosophy.
Regarding small edits: I understand that Dorico has a certain workflow and that there is little point in continuing to think in the logic of Finale (I really try!).
However, even within one mode, manual adjustments are hopelessly cumbersome. For example, if you are going to do some layout in engrave mode, you want to move small items, fine-tune the spacing of the staves,… Within engrave mode, you also have to activate a different function for that each time. For example, if you are working on the spacing, you cannot drag Dynamics or playing techniques and vice versa. If you then want to add some small details in the notes or arcticulations during layout (which is very normal when proofreading), you have to go back to write mode each time. Opening two windows could possibly be a possibility, but that should be completely unnecessary!
When searching the forums, I also noticed that for many smaller problems there are often weird, complex solutions where you actually have to “trick” the software into NOT doing something that it would otherwise do automatically. Dorico makes a lot of assumptions and that is (sometimes) quite annoying.
A nice example was for instance the creation of a Sfzp dynamic. Something that is very commonly used and should actually be very simple. This is not included in the prefabricated options for double dynamics and consequently a whole workaround is needed to arrive at something comparable. It really should be easier.
I have to start working on the parts for this project after the weekend, hopefully that will go a bit smoother.
Again, thank you for your kind help and sorry for complaining but I just expected a lot more of it. The fact that the support team is also unable to provide adequate answers causes a lot of unnecessary frustration.
I was looking today if I could file a complaint with Steinberg for the lack of support. I came up with this:
You can, but you can also create a cut-down version of your project – maybe delete all music after the first couple of pages, and use the Write > Transform function to scramble the pitches. The benefit to posting here is that someone else may well get to it before I have time to. (I can’t really comment on your spacing issues without seeing a file.)
True. This takes a little getting used to, but the advantage is that each tool can present its own markers on screen without things getting too cluttered. In Finale, too, you had to switch between the Selection tool, and the Page Layout tool, and any one of the Special Tools, among others.
True, but not unusual. I had a similar list of workarounds in Finale.
The dev team reads every thread here on the forum, and they jump in as needed. In many cases, when you post here you’ll get a helpful response from another user, which saves the time of the devs for the knottier issues, but you’ll also see the devs as frequent posters. If you use the forum search and try searching for @dspreadbury, @ulf, or @Lillie_Harris, you’ll see what I mean.
Edit: I see that Daniel actually provided the answer to your previous post, about adding a crescendo to part of a tied note. BTW, you can recognize the Steinberg employees on the forum from the little red Steinberg triangle in their avatars.
Nicholas,
You need to look farther down the spacing screen you were on.
Since you are after one system per page, you want to tell Dorico to spread the staves out no matter how much the system fills the page vertically.
@benwiggy has an article that goes into this line and the one below it with more subtlety than I have time to do now.
This is the one, I think:
Vertical Justification settings.pdf (561,1 Ko)
Hi Derrek,
Thanks for your reply.
I had tried that setting first but then Dorico suddenly places the staves much too far apart (the page layout really didn’t look good). That’s why I thried to make the settings so that it doesn’t do that. It’s really not practical for a conductor if everything is suddenly so far apart and then suddenly very close again on the next page.
I’ll be sure to check the article you are referring to.
Thanks!
Nicolas
Hi,
As Aaron suggested, I’ve added a test file to this conversation. I’ve used the transform function to shuffle the notes around a bit, so don’t mind the music. Since the note pattern has changed significantly, I’ve also undone all the manual changes I’ve made.
Thanks in advance for all your help!
Testfile NDC for Layout - Transformed Pitches.dorico (877,7 KB)
Hi Aaron, where can I find this reply you mentioned in your previous post?
I can only find the answers to this conversation (and some interventions from a bot)
You can always find your own posts by clicking on the My Posts link in the nav bar, or searching for your own username (with @ in front of it).
Here’s your other post, with Daniel’s reply underneath.
I took a look at the score you posted. There are other people here who know much more about spacing issues than I do, but it seems to me that one cause is that when your music goes to multiple divisi with 8 or 9 staves per system (as opposed to 5 at the beginning), the system height is too short to be left as-is on a page, but justifying it vertically leaves you with large inter-staff gaps that are not ideal. (Though not unheard of.)
I reset all the vertical spacing options to factory defaults (using the Library Manager), and then I made the space size a little smaller and set the vertical justification threshold to 50% instead of 60%. Right away, the results seemed better to me. When I changed the rastral size further, down to a 7 (not at all unheard of for scores), things got even better – none of the pages were left with a single system. You might try this as a starting point, see if it’s closer to what you want.
Testfile NDC for Layout - Transformed Pitches 2.dorico (947.5 KB)
In mm.26-37, you also had some stray dynamics in the solo violin line and some manual adjustments to the altri line; removing those improved the spacing of those staves.
Speaking as a conductor, going from two nicely spaced systems of 5 staves to one system of 8 staves with big gaps doesn’t bother me as a practical matter, even if it’s not the ideal look.
Ok, thanks for your help. It does look better now. Dorico still leaves a lot of unused space in the bottom of the page but that can probably be fixed as well I guess. I’ll leave things the way they are for this project (I’ve done the manual layout to the score anyway) but I’ll try to experiment a little further in a next project.
All the best!
