Out-of-the-box part layout anomalies

[composerkaumann]

I am a composer, and I spend less than 1% of my time on layout tasks.

My usual workflow is to first check and, if necessary, add system breaks manually, and then determine whether and where a manual frame break is needed.

As shown, Dorico sometimes formats parts like this by default (Dorico Pro 6.1.10 in this case).

In order to see where manual system breaks should be added, I first have to create a temporary frame break and later remove or adjust it as needed.

Is this really the optimal workflow, or am I missing a relevant setting?

[asherber]

It’s true that Dorico sometimes does make decisions that lead to a cramped page.

„Resolve the collision..” strange behavior

The problem here is that Dorico does not know exactly how much vertical space the music is going to occupy until it has cast it off, but it cannot know exactly how to cast it off until it knows the height of the music, so this is an inherently circular problem. When the 'Automatically resolve collisions between adjacent staves and systems’ option is on, then Dorico makes an estimate of what it thinks the height of the system(s) is likely to be prior to casting it off, so that it can decide when…

In your case, it looks like there are several lines with notes going way above and below the staff, as well as collisions between tempo marks/rehearsal marks, etc. I would guess that these are complicating Dorico’s spacing algorithm.

My usual approach in cases like this is to start by putting a frame break on the bottom system of the left page. This gives Dorico more vertical space to work with on that page, which is often enough to space systems properly.

After that, there are individual tricks you can try, like moving tempo marks to slightly different rhythmic positions in Write mode, to avoid the collision, and then repositioning them in Engrave mode. (Dorico does not recalculate automatic spacing after you manually move an item.)

[composerkaumann]

@asherber

moving tempo marks to slightly different rhythmic positions in Write mode

Thanks for your answer.
Seems we will have to live with this because you referred to an answer from 2018.
I do not want to touch the musical part by moving tempo mark to a musically wrong position. Composer’s cramp maybe

[Christian_R]

Hi @composerkaumann,

@composerkaumann

Is this really the optimal workflow, or am I missing a relevant setting?

if you could upload just this layout as Dorico project, it would be interesting to find out the fastest way to obtain the desired result (for this specific layout) with the less possible amount of steps (to augment the time dedicated to composing).