But I regularly create lead sheets and frequently encounter awkward staff vertical spacing when lyrics are involved. It’s simple enough to adjust vertical spacing in engrave mode, but it is an extra step. More importantly, if I happen to do some significant editing such as inserting a system break it’s all thrown off and needs to be redone.
Am I missing an important step or setting? I’ve attached an example. Note that all staves are 1.5" apart regardless of absence of lyrics on pg 1 (too much space) or additional text on pg 2 (crowding) .
You don’t need to specify such a large space between systems, because Dorico does collision avoidance with the lyrics. Just set your ideal gap to look good on the no-lyrics part, and the minimum gap between objects in adjacent systems so the lyrics are the right distance from the instruction on the next system.
While I’m playing with such settings I always turn off vertical justification by setting it to 100%, at least temporarily. Then when you get the gaps looking right you can re-justify.
Ah. In that case the overly large gaps in the first screenshot are due entirely to vertical justification, because the next system doesn’t quite fit on that page. You could try reducing the space size just a tiny bit to get one more system to fit, or leave the extra space at the bottom of the page by turning off vertical justification … There are many approaches.
Try increasing the “Minimum Gap” for between systems with content, rather than just the inter-system “Ideal Gap” (assuming you’ve not already tried doing so, that is).
This is a good suggestion, but I feel strongly there needs to be a separate parameter for spacing beneath lyrics. Adjusting the minimum gap to the extent needed for some lyric situations can result in a bad look for the rest of the score.
I found in a PV layout situation with one vocal line and a piano, the parameter for adjusting this in the vertical spacing options is “bracketed group to bracketed group” (even though the vocal line visible isn’t bracketed." I can increase this slightly in my PV layout and generally get the look I want. My problem is that it also affects any other bracketed groups, and I have other scenarios where I want more space between the bottom of the lyric line and the top of the piano line and NOT more space between other bracketed groups. This is what I think needs to be a separate parameter.
Sorry, I’m not posting a file with all my custom settings to an open forum. I’ve been very clear about the setting descriptions, what the context is and what I am requesting. The problem is not me misunderstanding the staff spacing settings. This is acknowledged oversight and I am drawing attention to it.
@GPMusicServices, you don’t have to upload a complete project - just enough to show the issue will be perfect.
Your custom settings are exactly what we need to see. If you don’t mind me asking: what is the harm in this? There could be things in there that can be tweaked to solve your problem, wouldn’t you want to find out?
Piano/Voice layout.
Several voice instruments in the project.
Some are solo, some are bracketed groups.
In flow A, only one voice staff has content.
I want more space between the bottom of the lyric and the top of the piano.
I can adjust this with “space between bracketed groups” setting. Works great.
PROBLEM is when a flow in the same project contains more than one bracketed group, for example two different vocal ensembles and piano.
What I want is space between the piano and the lowest voice, but NOT more space between the other bracketed groups.
There is not a setting for this as far as I’m aware.
