I don’t think there was a way to do this in dorico 3, but is there a function in Dorico 4 that functions like “optimize staves” in Sibelius??
for example, I removed a section letter from the “B” part. The letter B had created a large space above the third system in the lead sheet. I would like to reset the vertical spacing so that all of the staves are a consistent distance apart. In Sibelius I would do this via “Optimize staves” to re-flow the staff spacing. Is it still true here that I have to go in and manually adjust every vertical space from the third system on in every part in order to correct for this one small formatting change? Is there an automatic way to do this that I’m missing??
I did “reset layout” already and that didn’t help.
Update: If I set the repeat bar onto a new system (e.g. to the third system) if I then click “reset layout” then the repeat bar goes back up to the second system. So here again, is there any shortcut available for the task of manually re-setting staff spacing every time I want to create a system break??
There aren’t any new staff spacing features in Dorico 4.
There are several steps that go into staff spacing:
minimum distances
collision avoidance
vertical justification
manual edits (avoid)
I like to temporarily turn off vertical justification by setting both values to 100%, so I can see what else is going on. If you then find that the Letter B is still making a bigger space than you want, you could reduce the value in “Minimum inter-system gap with content”. But it looks like for this layout you might just want a larger minimum space between systems, so that the Letter B won’t be close enough to make a difference.
When you’ve got the spacing even to your taste, then turn the percentages for vertical justification back down and the pages will be filled to the bottom. Once you’ve got settings that you like in one part, you can make the same changes with all the other part layouts selected.
(“Reset Layout” in Dorico 4 deletes all system and frame breaks, resetting the layout to the default allocation of bars to systems/frames as determined by the layout’s options etc.)
Very helpful. I never ever (really ever) want vertical justification, so I always set it to 99%. I don’t want staves to fill the screen, but prefer to have consistent spacing between staves with blank space at the bottom. I’ll see if I can fiddle with the inter-system gap settings, but part of the problem is that (as with sibelius) the section letters tend to get somewhat arbitrarily placed (which is ok because the program can’t really know how to make them best fit in visually) and almost always need to be adjusted.
In the screen shot above, I’d already moved “B” which was previously floating above and to the left of the chord symbol “Am.”
I understand that manual edits are not preferred, but I don’t see any way to avoid them since the staves don’t automatically adjust when you move things around in Engrave Mode.
Of course if you want your Letter B further left, nothing wrong with moving it. I was referring, there, to manual edits to the staff spacing. So far I’ve been able to get good results with just the settings.
Several other users have complained about the relative alignment of rehearsal letters with chord symbols, tempo markings, etc. Unfortunately when we move something like a rehearsal letter down, Dorico still does collision avoidance as if it were in the default position. So I guess that’s what accounts for the extra 0.2" in your screenshot.
Have you achieved the even spacing you wanted yet?
I get the spacing by making manual adjustments in all of the parts. Can’t figure out how else to do it. When I create the line break the rehearsal mark goes where it wills itself. I adjust it manually, and then adjust the rest of the staves below to re-set the spacing.
Jake, the idea behind Dorico is, that you’ll never need to do an “optimise staff spacing” à la Sibelius - because that’s what Dorico does automatically, while you input your content.
You just have to tell Dorico in the Engraving and Layout Options, how your ideal Layout would look. I know f.e. there are settings, where you can set the way, Rehearsal Marks will position.
(sorry about my clumsy English…)
I know this is an old thread, but it seemed the best place to ask if anyone else has been using what looks like it may be a workaround to get the program to ‘re-optimize.’
If I add a non-breaking space to any staff text item (or add a shift-x item where it is the only character,) the pt size of that space can be used to add to the required collision avoidance spacing. That change will result in a re-justification. (Right?)
To anyone who has used this workaround, what kind of balance is there between a large pt size for the ‘spacing text’, and a minimal value for the collision avoidance default?
You can disable text collision avoidance for individual text items, which prevents them contributing to vertical spacing calculations, and you can disable collision avoidance between staves and systems for an entire layout, if you’d rather have consistently spaced staves/systems, regardless of content.
What you’re describing sounds quite involved and less reliable. If what I’ve suggested doesn’t suit, perhaps say a bit more about the context in which you’re finding it necessary to do that?
You always arrive with thoughtful and useful comments. I think what @RVSLee (and me previously) are asking about is a feature that was really handy in Sibelius called “optimize staves.” I understand that it is possible to turn off collision avoidance to keep the staves at the per-determined distance regardless of where items fall above and below the system. In this case, you have the option to move all of those items around to arrange them so that they don’t collide.
The challenge with that is that sometimes there is a benefit to having the systems be at different vertical height – even within one flow (say a one-page lead sheet). The “optimize staves” feature in Sibelius allowed you to move the objects around in a way that made sense, but then re-calculated vertical distance based on the collision cushions that result after you’ve moved the objects around.
The effect is to create a more organic flow for the Vertical system spacing that recognizes that sometimes you need a little bit more or less vertical space to preserve a pleasing aesthetic layout.
With Dorico it all has to be done more or less by guesswork to visually set uneven vertical spacing for staves.
For folks who tend to do a lot of work with one or two page lead sheets this old feature in Sibelius was really handy.
I find that Dorico naturally does this! The only challenge is working out the generally best spacings for your aesthetics. Once you’ve found that you never really need to think about it again!
Lillie, Janus -
First of all, echoing the “thanks” from Jakeysworld, and thanks to him for backing me up on the question. In my case, though, the issue arises from vertically tightly packed new-music-ensemble scores. In this context, no algorithmically calculated distribution of space will be correct every single time.
Making an adjustment with engraving-> staff spacing is straightforward, but all it does is shift space between above and below the selected staff (or staves.) In a tightly packed frame, that change often means adjustments are required on every other staff as well. Doing the calculations to come up with new spacing values that maintain some degree of proportionality, and applying that new spacing individually to full score system staves is hugely time consuming.
Any way that work can be turned back to automatic on Dorico is hugely more efficient. Since the addition of a staff item at any time causes the program to recalculate the total value of vertical space available in a frame, and then to re-distribute staff spacing from that new base value, my workaround is indeed much faster, even if I play around with the point size of the blank character to create the right size ‘starting’ space change.
However, this gimmick only has an effect of adding inter-staff spacing. My question (to anyone already using it) was about whether that fact meant that a really minimal value for the Layout inter-staff options would make the process more useful or just cause more instances that needed correction.
And I was wondering if anyone had a table relating font sizes to the vertical space implications (depending of course on rastral size and other factors.)
I hope all of this made sense. (And once again, thanks!)
