Score formatting

Greetings all! Hopefully a quick answer to this. How can I get the last 2 bars to move to the previous page? I’ve tried deleting system breaks and moving the measures to the previous system, going pages before and trying to format towards the end. I get to the point where Move to Previous system doesn’tmove anything, move to next system creates and entire page of 1 bar and I can’t move it at all and have to undo multiple times to get to the point where it was when i started.
Many Thanks

Hi @dggnotes,
in your case, you need first to delete the System Break on the last page. You can then select the system Break on bar 138, and in Engrave mode activate in the Properties Panel Wait for next system break.

Then generally (if you don’t have forced System or Frame Breaks, in which case you may want first to Reset the Layout in Engrave mode) a quick way to shrink the music to fit in less pages is to edit the Note Spacing. You can do this globally for the desired layout:

or from a certain point to a certain point inputting Note Spacing Changes. You can input one NSC that changes the note spacings from that rhythmical position, and the next that resets the changes, following from that reset point the global settings again.
If you input only one NSC, it will affect all the music from that rhythmic position till the end of the current Flow.

I wouldn’t begin to put in system breaks or any formatting adjustments until all the notes are in. See how it gets spaced with the notes, then start note spacing changes and system/frame breaks as needed.

5 Likes

Unless you’re copying a score, and you want to keep the bars/pages in the same place while you copy it in; but otherwise, I’d agree: let Dorico do the spacing first and worry about pages and layout once the notes are in.

I’d also turn off the option to “Only justify final system in flow…” as shown in Christian’s image of Layout Options above.

Hello, I don’t see any music in your screenshot. In Dorico: first input your music, secondly look how Dorico spaces your music out, then only start changing things (either global settings or manual overrides).

Exactly. It seems to me that working to layout with empties bars is not the best way… Once music will be inputted in, you’ll be able to see the light.

I was going to say the same, but notice that the bars in the screenshot are different widths, so there must be notes in the strings not pictured.

Thanks folks!
There’s music in the score there, sparse and not shown: strings, vibes, harp and celeste, end of the piece. I did follow Christian_R’s instruction and deleted the system break on the final page (“Wait for Next System Break” was already selected[!]) , and it healed itself.
I have set the number of bars per system to 6 and it looks good. Coming from Finale (beg your patience :pray:), I could select, say, 4 bars if the music was a little more busy and just tell Finale to put those 4 bars as a single page and it would. Is there a similar way to do that in dorico with just a couple of keystrokes?

Yes, I think that the screenshotin OP is a cut-out version just as example.

Yes (but in your case you may want to delete the other system Breaks anyway, or best to do a Reset Layout, and then go from the beginning of the piece, and put the Frame breaks where you need):

But as other said: please let Dorico calculate the Layout for you:

Insert first all the music, dynamics, etc…, possibly in Galley view. Dorico will do a nice job already with the factory settings/options. Only now start deciding how to customise your Layout, in three steps:

  1. globally: the various Layout options for rastral size, the automatic casting off, the note spacings, the ideal gaps, the vertical justification, the various Engraving Options for text spacing, rehearsal marks spacing and position, etc…

  2. locally: frame and system breaks, using also make into frame eventually, local Note Spacing Changes, etc…

  3. final adjustments at the veeery end: you can drag thing manually (in Engrave mode) if the above mentioned adjustments don’t give you 100% the desired result (but with good 1.global settings and some 2.local one you can reach 98% of your layout, without touching anything manually :slight_smile: )

You get the best note spacing if you let Dorico do all the casting off automatically. When you need certain bars to be together or separated, beware that forcing a bar onto a system so that it’s >100% full may result in collisions. The same with forcing a system onto a page.

It’s more effective and less dangerous to set the note spacing (and staff spacing) as narrow as you would want it anywhere in the score. Then where you want to put a page turn, or match a system break to a change in instrumentation, etc., add a single break and that will always stretch rather than compress.

Finale users switching to Dorico are used to having to manage layout manually, and most are tinkering with layout too early in the process of copying. It is really instructive to copy an entire large score without touching layout at all, and see what Dorico does with it first. Then making adjustments is much quicker, simpler, and more effective because you’re working with Dorico’s tools rather than against them.

2 Likes

Understood.
This score being the first large project I’ve done in Dorico, I did let it do exactly what it does without messing with anything but ended up with the 2 bars on the last page. Why waste a large sheet of paper on 2 bars? Then I started tinkering and couldn’t find a solution without Dorico creating a single measure that took up an entire page. So I did a “save as” and just started messing around with the new file. Feels like the this is just as manual as Finale. Tinkering with note spacing and such doesn’t feel like a timesaver regardless of Dorico doing all the work for you.
The results are nice, the parts look great (except for Dorico resetting my part defaults to something weird that I had to keep resetting!). Right now its translating from Finale-ish to Dorico-ism, locating where things are, and learning the ins and outs. (The thing about tied notes being treated as one note still eludes me…)
By the way, is there a way to unhide hidden rests?
Thanks All!!

Select the last note or rest prior to the bar where rests stop appearing, and in the Properties panel, deactivate the Ends voice property.

1 Like

@dggnotes
If you are willing to share your Project here, I am sure someone more experienced will find a “couple of clicks” solution for your layout.

If changing note spacing does not give you the desired result, try to change the Rastral size (Staff size) just by a fraction (f.e. from 1.63 to 1.6). I also sometimes play with page margins, changing them slightly by just a millimetre.

1 Like

Like many people here, I’ve been in the process of discovering Dorico for a month now (Finale Announcement) and your comments make me wonder.
I had got into the habit, in Sibelius or Finale, of not touching the note spacing too much (except here and there, manually) so as not to disturb the software’s calculations, particularly in the event of resizing the score.

In the event of a layout problem, I’ve always preferred to act first on the size of the staves (for example, to fit the piece into two pages and repatriate an orphan system from the third).

Does Dorico require you to act differently ?

I don’t think it is required, but it is preferred. It is art rather than science.

I do think it is essential to play around and experiment with all the different tools so you can make an informed choice about which one to use in each situation.

As I suggested in my previous post about a possible approach in three levels for Lay-outing, here an example for Note Spacings:

In Dorico Note Spacing appears on three different “levels”

GlobalNote Spacing options for the whole layout (from Layout Options/Note Spacing):

"Local "Note Space Change (from Engrave menu) to change the NS for a particular Flow only, or a particular passage from selected rhythmic positions, or to create space for a free narrator text when needed:

Granular”/note by note Note Spacing (from Engrave mode Note spacing icon) for note by note changes and very fine adjustments:

Thank you Janus.
With this in mind, and in order to avoid making mistakes, I saw that it was possible to influence this spacing locally ; if I select only one or two bars, will the setting given by Christian apply to these two bars only, or from these two bars to the end of the score ?

Edit : Christian and Ben write faster than me and have just given the answer. Thank you all very much.

Do you mean actually reducing the size of the staves on one page? I would only do that as a last resort.

Plate engravers would certainly change the spacing according to the music. In Dorico, you can do this easily with Note Spacing Changes (under the Engrave menu). I really find them amazingly useful. For instance, if you have a section in 3/8, you’ll want to loosen the spacing; and for a section in 4/2, you’ll want to tighten it up.

I think that’s certainly preferably to forcing system breaks everywhere. I also pay attention to the % fullness indicators. If you have one system at 97%, then the next at 62%, then the second system can happily take a bar from the first one.

Note Spacing Changes will apply until the end of the Flow, unless you add another to “Reset” the default.