So trying to put two choirs (SATB and SSA) on a page for conductor. Some pages space just fine, others are creating too large a gap between staves and thus making music too squashed. Three examples: one spaced reasonably OK and the other showing the problem.
I know its my error somehow as only been using Dorico a year…which I love BTW!
It looks like you want the systems to be justified but not the staves. In that case, start by trying to set this value to 100% in Layout Options > Vertical Spacing, and see if it’s globally better for you:
Then you may have to do some other adjustments, but I would start with that!
I’d argue that page 7 should space the staves further apart, with a smaller gap between the systems (adjust Vertical Collision 2nd percentage from 80% to 100%); page 2 needs to be tighter between the staves; and page 6 is just about ok, but more space would help.
Ideally, it would be useful to see the entire page in Engrave mode, showing the margins and staff/system fullness.
My first thought is that there’s quite a lot of space between the page header and the top of the music. I’d also check that the Staff Size isn’t too big.
2 systems of 7 staves, with two lines of music, plus text marks is going to be tight at the best of times.
You might want to reduce the distance from the staff for Text objects (in Paragraph Styles). Having the lyrics from 23 onwards on one system in the Soprano, so that you don’t need space for two lines, might help things. The space between the verses is quit generous, too.
(If the scoring doesn’t change much throughout the piece, I’d recommend removing the staff labels on every line – but you might want to think about grouping with brackets and subbrackets – is this two groups of singers, S M A and SATB…?)
