Hello!
For school ensembles, I use 8.5 x 11 paper, with four to six bars per system, and eight to ten systems, for parts.
With a reasonable busy piece, what are the standard details for orchestral parts; page size, bars per system, systems per page etc?
How you you, more experienced folk, approach this situation?
I was looking the page size options in Dorico, and didn’t see anything that looked much bigger than what i already use. I’m searching through, “Behind Bars” for clues, but apparently, my “key words” aren’t adequate.
Your guidance will be appreciated.
Thank you!
Search for “MOLA score guidelines.”
Just looking at the length and width and thinking “13 x 10 isn’t much bigger than 11 x 8.5” can be misleading.
If you ignore the page margins which are about the same size for both, a 13 x 10 page has about 50% more useable area than 11 x 8.5. That means about 50% more bars of music for the same staff size, and easier choices of good places for page turns, etc.
9″×12″ page size with ½″ margins and 7.0mm staff size is standard for orchestral parts.
MOLA bases their staff size on hand copied music. 8.5mm is quite exaggerated for computer engraved music.
Thank you for the responses, everyone!
The research (and hopefully, the growth) continues. 
