I’m finding that I have to do a reasonable amount of manual adjustment of aligning elements like rehearsal marks and tempos, etc., and am wondering if there’s anything in the layout settings I can do to improve this. I’ve set the rehearsal mark placement such that it’s not too far from the staff, but so that it doesn’t overlap with the clef much. If I put it far enough from the treble clef to avoid any contact, it’s a mile away from other clefs, and also a mile away from the staff when it appears in the middle of a system. But in many cases the tempo marks and rehearsal marks don’t really align well.
Maybe this kind of manual adjustment is unavoidable, but I’m hoping I can get closer. The pdf attached is an example of a part using my settings, with no manual adjustment other than adding some system breaks. The excerpted Dorico project includes my settings (see the guitar part layout options).
AWW - Jazz Orchestra - test.dorico (1.7 MB)
40 - All Without Words - Guitar.pdf (101.0 KB)
1 Like
Hi there! If you go Library → Engraving options (or SHIFT COMMAND E) → Rehearsal Marks. There you can adjust where in relation to the barline rehearsal marks are placed, as well as the distance from the bar itself.
The only caveat is you need to make sure you select all parts you want to change this in, or else it’ll apply to the score but not the parts. Let me know if this helps or you would like visuals to find any of this!
1 Like
Thanks, and I have done this. But the issues I have are that I cannot seem to find settings that a) keep the rehearsal marks out of the way of things like clefs when they appear at the start of a system, but also b) are not so far from the staff in the middle of a system that they bump up agains the system above, and c) can align nicely with things like tempo marks.
Is there some magic combination of settings that I might employ that will be a happy medium? Or are there some collision/alignment settings that I have set incorrectly in my layout options attached above that I need to fix?
Ah I understand, the best option for that is limiting the number of bars per staff, and then staves per page.
By default there is no limit and so things get very scrunched, leaving you to fix it all manually. I find that 4 to 6 measures per staff, and 4 to 5 staves per system, make it much neater. This way things have room to breathe and added markings are not bumping into each other.
1 Like
Right, that makes sense. But that still won’t affect the fact that in the attached part, in m. 58, the rehearsal number is no where near the tempo mark; in m. 75, it sits above the tempo marks; in m. 86, the alignment with the tempo text is off because the tempo mark moves up to avoid the rest count, but the rehearsal mark does not follow it. None of these things are avoidable automatically with wider spacing. And I know it would be an even bigger ask, but I would ideally want the rehearsal mark at 54 to move down and in front of the dyad with the tall stack of articulations.
Is there any way to automate these appearance issues?
Hi @jjm_335, I wanted to try some settings but your Dorico file (Guitar part) looks like this (seems quite empty) on my system:
Was this the right file? Or you intended to send a project without music only for the Settings? To try out the settings on a concrete example it would be helpful to have some music in it (If you would like to share)
Sorry, I did remove almost everything in order to get the file size small. Here’s a trimmed version that still has the guitar part info.
AWW - Jazz Orchestra copy 2.dorico (2.1 MB)
Thanks for taking a look!
Hi @jjm_335, sorry for the delay…
I attach here a version of the guitar layout. I used only global settings. The only 5 manual interventions are marked with the red numbers. I don’t have your fonts, so there may be differences. You may not like what you see: it is just an experiment and a suggestion. You can see the global adjustments comparing this file with the one you posted in Library Manager.
Dorico file:
AWW - Jazz Orchestra-CORRECTED.dorico (2.3 MB)
Result:
This looks very good! Can I ask you: at 1, 2, 4, 5, you adjusted note spacing. Do you mean that you moved the notes at the start of the measures to the right so that the rehearsal marks would drop down a bit automatically? Also, what fonts are you using for the text and rehearsal numbers?
My only issue with this is that putting the measure counts under the multibar rests leaves no room for measure number ranges under the H bars. In a separate thread, I’ve been asking about the options for placing the measure counts inside the staff but it seems that’s not possible via any global settings. I’ll still be trying to find a good workaround for that, but meanwhile this will give me some ideas about how note spacing might automate some of this process.
Thank you much for taking the time!
Exactly.
I pretty always use the Dorico Default Fonts in my projects, Bravura and Academico. But by opening your File, Dorico told me that I don’t have the fonts present in your Project, and I just clicked OK. I suppose that Dorico then chooses other compatible Fonts substitutions. You can see in Library Manager what is used in the file and the differences between it and the factory settings. It seems that LS Iris and Kalam are very much present in the Styles:
Putting the Multi-bar count Number below, solves many issues (hopefully in future there will be the options to put them inside the H, with erase background or something similar as in the other post requested 
). And, well, this is the version with Bar Number Ranges activated (and no adjustment) :
You are welcome!
3 Likes
