Respacing bars

How can I adjust the width of bars faster than by using the note spacing in Engraving? I am editing an orchestral score with lots of narration above the score and the bars need to be aligned to the text above it. Using the Note spacing option for this is extremely slow.

Hm. I think there is no other way.
You know that you can move the handles in larger increments with Ctrl+Alt+arrow? And that you can select multiple handles at once? Just in case…

Another option might be to use Engrave > Note Spacing Change to make the width for a quarter note considerably wider, then have a further Note Spacing Change on the following bar that resets it back to the normal width. You can then copy and paste those Note Spacing Change signposts.

That works great! Thanks, Daniel. I didn’t know about this option except from Layout options for global setting.

I noticed that often the spacing between 16th notes is getting narrower towards the end of a bar as in the screenshot. Why is that?

Andre, although I can’t be sure, I’d guess your system is pretty full. There’s not a lot of room there for the accidentals and such.

But shouldn’t still all 16th notes being spaced equally, no matter how full a system is? Also, this particular system is only 96 % full according to Note Spacing:

Post a picture that shows the whole system and maybe we can tell. Showing little tiny sections doesn’t give enough context to tell you the reason. I’m certain there will be a good reason, though: Dorico’s rhythmic spacing is impeccable.

Yes, that makes sense, Daniel. Here are the top and bottom part of this page. btw. The above post contains the wrong screenshot, sorry about that. I was talking about the 16th notes.


In the first bar of your screenshot there’s an accidental on every single note. In the second bar there are accidentals on every note apart from the 8th, 10th, 11th and 12th semiquavers (16th notes).

It may be that you’ve made the Note Spacing rules tighter than usual, meaning that runs of notes with no accidentals sit closer together, but when there are accidentals Dorico simply has to make room for them.

In addition to Leo’s assessment: I would take a look at the spacing gaps that are defined on the Accidentals page of Engraving Options. The space between accidentals and the preceding notes seems wider than necessary to me.

Thanks for the suggestion, this really helped. I decreased the space 2 steps and also switched to default note head size, which made the score look less cramped.

Indeed better, but still inferior to F*'s default spacing … :open_mouth: :smiley:

I’d pit Dorico’s rhythmic spacing against Finale’s any day of the week and be confident of an outcome in Dorico’s favour.

so would I, actually, but in this particular case, it seems to me that D. should zoom out and consider the whole bar, not just the beat…

That’s as well may be, but Andre’s tweaked the settings so what you’re seeing in his screenshots are NOT Dorico defaults.

I’m with Pianoleo on this one. The spacing for each instrument is affected by accidentals in other instruments. The final 4 semiquavers in bar before 14 have their accidentals carried forward from earlier ones in the bar and so are more tightly spaced. My first impression is that the earlier semiquavers are loosely spaced and the final 4 are fine.

Having said that, the first C# in the bassoon part in bar before 14 seems a long way from the time signature change…

Might be interesting to see an instrumental part to see how the spacing appears when unencumbered by other parts.

Here are some systems from these bars in a part,they look very well spaced:

Agreed. The part is aesthetically pleasing and tidy.

As a conductor, I’m not bothered by the spacing in the full score. In fact the FS trumpet spacing looks worse than the woodwind but, again, it didn’t bother me.

Is there a setting somewhere that allows DORICO to decide the width of a bar on the basis of the notes added (and their readability) to any of the instrument lines?
Appreciate you view on this.
Thx Maarten