RESOLVED: Piano staves too close in imported Music XML file

Dorico
1

The attached screen grab show piano staves from a Piano part of a Dorico Pro 3 file created from an imported Music XML file.

There are no staff collisions in the Score, but all the piano parts are like this.

Is there a way to fix this without dragging each staff manually (which would be a major hassle due to the number of staves)?

I tried selecting all the staff handless and then “Engrave > Staff Spacing > Reset Layout”, but nothing changed.

I searched the web and the forums without success.

Thanks!
Staff_spacing_Dorico_Pro_3.jpg

2

Hi bobk!
You should not mess manually with those things. I would suggest to simply import this flow to a new project (open a new project, import flow → that one) and Dorico will apply its defaults, which are usually near perfect.
Or you can select all and apply Edit>Reset appearance, which should give the same kind of result.
Check that in your import preferences, you do keep only things that really matter…

3

It looks like your vertical spacing—Ideal Gaps settings might be amiss. Are some of those values set to 0?

4

I wish I didn’t have to!

I tried both of these, and neither worked.

5

Not zero, but close - 1.9 mm.

How do I fix that?

6

SOLVED!

Dan, your post got me thinking about the staff spacing settings, and that led me to this:

In Layout Options > Staves and Systems > Casting Off, the box for “Fixed number of systems per frame” was checked, and the number of systems was set to 10.

I un-checked that, and the problem went away. Distance between treble and bass staves automatically changed to 10.5 mm.

EDIT: I don’t know how that box got checked, but I certainly didn’t do it! :smiley:

7

Great! Thanks for the feedback :slight_smile:

8

Bob, if you previously clicked ‘Save as Default’ in another project in which you previously had set fixed casting-off to specify 10 systems per frame, that would explain it. Those ‘Save as Default’ buttons are powerful but must be used with care.

9

Thanks, Daniel!

I don’t recall ever setting casting-off.

I did the following tests just now, and they seem to point to an issue with the specific MusicXML file (created with Sibelius Ultimate in March of this year):

  1. Opened two files created from scratch in Dorico Pro 2 (i.e., not from MusicXML import). The casting-off checkox was un-checked.

I’m 99 percent certain I did not click ‘Save as Default’ after un-checking it this morning.

  1. Opened another MusicXML file created on the same date as the one in question (also from Sibelius Ultimate). The casting-off checkbox was un-checked.

  2. Re-opened the MusicXML file in question. The casting-off checkbox WAS checked.

  3. Created new file in Dorico Pro 3. Checkbox was not checked.

Is casting off part of the MusicXML spec? (I did a quick search and found nothing about this.)

10

No, the setting is not part of the MusicXML file. If you start a new project and look in the Layout Options dialog, you’ll find that it’s set because at some point you’ve saved those settings as a default.

11

Just updated my previous post to include one additional test: I created a new file in Dorico Pro 3, and the box was un-checked.

12

Well, that’s probably to the good, since at least for a full score, having that value fixed for all projects is unlikely to be a helpful default.