I have watched a number of videos and searched the forums and I’m starting to get my head around the concepts, but I’ve yet to find how to do one specific thing and I think it might be a conceptual problem on my part.
Very simply, I would like to apply vertical spacing changes (e.g. “Braced staff to unbraced staff”) to selected pages in a score automatically so that I don’t have to make the same (or very similar) changes by hand on multiple pages. It seems like I should somehow be able to associate a specific layout with specific pages, but that’s where I suspect I have a conceptual problem. Can this be done?
I don’t believe you can do that, at least not easily. The spacing gaps are in Layout Options, which means that they apply to all pages in a given layout. You would have to split your music into different flows, then set up different layouts for the different flows, then export as PDF and stich the layouts together.
But there may be a way to get the look you want without all of this. Can you post a project or some screenshots so we can see what you’re going for?
I suspected that what I want to do might be impossible. It seems like the same formatting values have to apply to all the pages in a specific layout.
Here’s a couple screen shots showing what I’m trying to do.
This one has the vertical space set so that it looks good on the left-hand page (with 4 systems), but has the systems to close together on the right-hand page (with 5 systems).
In this one I tightened up the intra-system spacing to provide more inter-system spacing. I’m going to have more pages where I need to squeeze a fifth system on, despite the fact that it’s kinda ugly. Hopefully not to many if I have to do it by hand every time.
Hi @TomCraig, maybe is not the case (now that I see your second post and example ) but there is a Copy Staff Spacing functionality in engrave mode, to copy manual staff spacing changes to subsequent pages (to be used just in case other global settings don’t give the desired result), but this requires to have the same amount of systems and staves on the subsequent pages as in the original page (more informations in the Manual:
Here a short example (for other usage cases than yours):
For your example, it would be easier to help if you could upload your Dorico file, for us to experiment with the settings and give precise advice on the best settings for your situation.
I would suggest using a smaller space size for this layout, in Layout Options > Page Setup > Space Size. This will make all of your notes and staves smaller, which will give you more room both horizontally (your systems are all currently overfull) and vertically.
If you own Sibelius, there’s a special price for crossgrades. And if you own Finale, there’s an even lower crossgrade price.
Edit: And if you don’t own those, you might want to buy from Sweetwater – they’re offering a financing deal this month that will let you spread the payments out over 3 years.
OT. You also appear to have forced more material onto every system than Dorico wants to do (evidenced by those red percentages). I’d guess, if you show signposts, there will be a system breaks. on every system.
Just change the Layout options>Note spacing and none of those manual interventions will be needed.
