The music only needs 2 pages. On input, it went to 3; I persuaded it into two frames/pages but the last 3 systems on page 2 now overlap, so I want to spread the systems down the page more evenly, to avoid that.
I’ve fixed this for now with manual staff spacing but obviously it’s very laborious and I wonder if I’ve missed something - ideally, I’d like to be able to select the frame and tell it to spread stuff out (as Optimise Staff Spacing does, in Sibelius), so there’s no overlap. If there is a way, I can’t find it and would appreciate pointers. (I don’t want to reduce the size of the music, which might have sidestepped the difficulty in the first place.)
Overlap suggests there’s not enough vertical space for both systems. However: golden rule in Dorico is to adjust the global settings for Layout first, then do manual adjustment sparingly.
Check the Vertical Spacing settings for the space between staves.
It’s hard to tell without seeing the page, though.
I agree, it’s hard to know the cause without seeing the score (not just a picture of the page!)
Another strategy is to use a Note Spacing Change (in the Engrave menu) at the start of the flow. Reducing the spacing for a quarter-note from the default 4 down to 3.75 or 3.5 can reduce the number of systems by one or two without making the score look “squashed”. If you don’t use many 16th-notes or shorter, you can often reduce this from 4 to 3 without making the score unreadable.
If you only have one flow, you don’t need to use a note spacing change: you can simply adjust the settings on the Note Spacing page of Layout Options to tighten the note spacing a little by default for the layout as a whole.
Very many thanks to all - this has given me a lot of options. All noted in my Cuminandy file.
Another option might be to disable collision avoidance in Layout Options (vertical distances category).
If you don’t have enough space for the staves and staff elements, I don’t think that’ll help. Gotta reduce rastral size, methinks.