Please help with formatting this page

I frequently run into this kind of challenge, most likely due to my approach. It doesn’t look like much of a problem but I’ve spent over an hour trying to get it right.

Could someone please give me a step by step process of how they would clean up this page?

On this page, I simply want to fix the dangling measure, respace the line beginning with m9 so that the first measure is tightened up and the tied notes of the last word “secure” are on the same line. When I add a system break in m13 on the 1/8 note grouping it spreads the remainder of mm13 across the page. If I try to tie it to the previous system it breaks the page at m9 and again at mm13. I’ve spent about an hour trying various ways to fix this. Clearly, there are still things I don’t understand about frames, frame breaks, staff settings.

Thank you!

Can you send your Dorico project so we can take a closer look what’s happening ?

It strikes me that the gaps either side of hyphens are too large. They’re adjustable at Engraving Options > Lyrics, and they certainly explain why bar 9 is spread wider than the rest of the system.

As to “trying to join together” a system, the picture just shows that you’ve turned a system break into a frame break, which is why it’s pushed on to the next page. You’d need a System Break at bar 9, set to Wait For Next System Break, and another System Break midway through bar 12 (where it already is). It’s possible you’ve used the “Make Into Frame” button (which will create a Frame Break set to Wait For Next Frame Break) rather than the “Make Into System” button (which will do what I described above: two System Breaks where the first waits for the next).

I suspect that fixing the hyphens will resolve this, though.

Thanks tons - adjusting the hyphen spacing fixed one problem, setting the “wait for next system break” fixed the other (i keep forgetting about this setting) and lastly I was indeed clicking “make into frame” instead of “make into system.”

Additionally, there was some wonkiness with the time signature. I deleted it, then added a new one and it seems to be spacing better now.

Thanks - I love this forum

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