Why is it so complecated for this program to flow measures and staffs as you add parts and measures. This is a BASIC function. What am I missing?
Iām afraid I donāt understand your problem, could you tell a bit more what you are trying, what result you would like to see, but what you get instead?
There are a number of factors. Some screenshots might help us answer your question. (Turn Hide Signposts off (View menu) which might help us.)
View menu - Page, Galley or Fill View, which one have you selected?
Layout options, Cast off setting (normally have it unselected)
As it stands, we are guessing into thin air as to the precise nature of your problem. Please help us help you by adding some specifics along with some pictures or better yet, a project file.
I imported a scanned piece as a xlm file.
Once imported the systems are, what seems to be locked. I change measure sizes, nothing happens. I follow āTipsā on how to get the program to re-size. I even upgraded from version 5 to 6. I just donāt understand WHY this is so complicated. Why does the software not re-adjust the music to fit the score? Its such a sipmle thing. 30+ years on finale going back to college, nothing like this every frustrated me more. Layout is unlocked, I reset layout. Nothing changes. One page has 4 measure, other page has one measure. Is there not a simple button to press and have the program adjust and even out the score?
Xml imports can be tricky (itās often suggested to uncheck most things when you open a MusicXML file to get a clean start), but when you reset the layout it should have removed any system breaks so that changes of rastral size take effect. (And besides the rastral size, you can also play with other Layout Settings such as note spacingā¦) As hrnbouna said, itād be easier to figure out whatās going on if you can share the project.
But another thing that might help with the frustration is to take one step back. For us with 30+ years in Finale itās easy to think that we know how a piece of notation software works, but Dorico works differently (better, IMHO) so itās worth it to start from the beginning. Read the first chapters of the documentation or watch the videos (or both) to get a feel for how the program works instead of jumping right in and get frustrated because it doesnāt work the way you expect.
Can you upload the project file here, so that we can see whatās going on?
Your complaint is so, well even, too common with new Dorico users. Iāve introduced Dorico to about a dozen former Finale colleges of mine and all but one said nearly the same thing. Perhaps not your specific issue but something similar. The bottom line Dorico is not an easy app to learn for far too many folks.
Thank you for your comment. I am not new to computers, not new to programing, not new to music composition. This program is not intuitive at all. I am trying my best to learn it as it seems everyone is moving this direction with the closure of Finale. I honestly spend 80% of my composing time looking up how to do things online. I did fix this problem, but the solution was burried withing sub menues of menues and not clear at all. Its a BASIC thing for measure and staff systmens to ballance out and flow correctly while composing without a author locking down anything. I sometimes feel the programers wanted Dirico to be different from Finale, just to be different, not because it was an improvment. I will continue to try to learn, frastrating as it is.
I bet you would say the same if you had switched from decades of Dorico to Finale. 
And by default Dorico doesnāt lock the layout. The XML import does that. Uncheck to import system and frame breaks as suggested and youāre fine.
I was with Finale from the beginning. I was the Finale instructor for USD 231 for 25 years. 12 music teachers. Beata tester for 10 years back when Finale was properly run before the Colorado distaster.
In that time I canāt remember as many being as frustrated learning Finale as I have with a few dozen and all the ones on this forum or the FB forum in my last two years with Dorico.
Iāve worked with Finale more than 30 years (starting with v2.6.3) and I can remember how steep the learning curve was.
But itās not about learning a program from scratch.
Itās about decades of habit ā and muscle memory ā and then you have to learn a program which does basically the same but is based on a completely different approach.
All I can do is to encourage you to keep at it and watch all the John Barron videos. All of them. The David Larson videos are among the very best too.
I just renewed my Sibelius Ultimate license for another year. It is by far the simplest and easiest music app there is currently for what it can do. Still, again I urge you to keep at Dorico as I have no doubt it is the future. Any software that is a competent as Dorico will have a steep learning curve. In Sibelius you will still have to do edits when you are done every time perhaps even a lot of them albeit they are easy to do. In Dorico you will do less perhaps not as easy though but maybe sometimes none are needed.
The main, most, number one complaint is, I canāt find what I want to do. I hear it all the time not just from you. Steinberg knows that and that is why they created the āJā jump bar. However, the āJā jump bar is of little use if you donāt know what Dorico calls what you are looking for and it just does nothing to help in that case. There are just too many places to check for editing something and the different modes seem to fight one another at times. I heard that described as two divorced parents arguing over whose turn it is with the kids.
Again if you want easy get Sibelius but be warned it isnāt any where nearly as competent as Dorico. Plus you are either going to rent it (Sibelius) by the month or buy a preputial license that you need to renew every year if you want help or upgrades. Doricoās help is first rate.
There are a few guys here that are very helpful, understanding, and a couple that are not so helpful. Just ignore them.
Good luck
BTW, Aaron Sherber is one of the best āhelpersā on this forum. He helped me a lot and has the patience to do it. Thaās important.
I can definitely confirm that!
So much this. Most of the āthis stupid program is so unintuitiveā comments Iāve heard comes from people with decades of experience in Finale (or other programs) so I suspect that intuitive for most of them would be more or less āworking the way Iām used toā. Oddly enough, I felt at home with Dorico quickly despite my many years with Finale. I guess it simply is a good fit with how I think, and what I want from a music notation program.
I have no idea if people with a good grasp of notation but without prior experience with music software would find Dorico more or less intuitive than Finale or Sibelius. But what I do know is that if you investigated that, you wouldnāt get everyone in agreement. eebiggs said earlier in this thread that Sibelius is "by far the simplest and easiest music app there is"and Iāve heard other people say similar things since Sibelius first appeared. Thatās not my experience.
Whatās my point? Whatās unintuitive and a steep learning curve to one person isnāt necessarily the same for everyone, for various reasons. (Prior experience, type of brain, ā¦) Struggling when learning something new is valid, and voicing what you find difficult or strange is likely to be helpful to the developers as well as any people willing to help. But if one can leave the āthis sucksā attitude behind (which can be difficult at the moment of frustration), it will help oneās learning process. (Iām a teacher - I know this!) And as a bonus, it will make things more pleasant for the people one interacts with too.
(I picked the term āoneā here deliberately. While my comments here are prompted by this thread, I am making a general observation and not intending to point fingers at any one person in particular.)
Your statement proves the point. āSo Manyā tells me many others feel the same way. Not only that, I look though this Forum and find people having the same issues as I. The note input method is ridiculously over complicated. WHY CANāT I just select a note, its value, and drop it onto the staff line. WHY have this complicated start note input function. Should the program not model itself after paper and pencil traditional input first. I am not saying forget the āQuickā input method, just saying why not have a traditional option.
I feel like Finale made an attempt to recreate the āPaper and Pencelā input. Even a light musician could select quarter note and drop it on the staff without the complicated āStart Note Inputā. Like why do I need to hit āQā to create a chord, why not just let me place the notes on the staff like pen and paper.