I imported a music XML file into Dorico, which usually goes just fine. This time, I’ve got staff breaks in the middle of measures, which I don’t want. I’m racking my brains sorting through the help files trying to find out how to expand/contract the measures or otherwise change this, to no avail. There must be a simple way to do this. Can someone point me in the right direction?
– I did find that I could introduce System Breaks on the partial measures, which patches the problem, but is labor intensive and awkward. There must be a more global way of fixing this, right?
Welcome to the forum. I would guess you have some errant time signatures, which can happen with XML import. I’ve experienced this in the past.
Show signposts, including time signatures, and look for hidden red flags indicating time signatures. If possible, delete and replace the time signatures and all should be well.
Thank you, Dan! I did actually have an extra time signature close to the beginning of the score, and did delete it, but that didn’t change the situation. Perhaps I’m just stuck with fixing it “by hand,” but at least it’s good to know that it was caused by something buggy, and not by something I did wrong or didn’t understand.
Welcome to the forum Max – if you’re not happy with basically the entire layout, you can reset its casting off which will remove all system and frame breaks and revert back to what Dorico would do by default, based on the music and your default settings for the layout (note spacing, vertical spacing, margins etc).
If you’re relatively new to Dorico, you might find the section of our First Steps guide about laying out pages interesting – it starts here, and shows how to bring a 4-page piano piece onto 2 pages without manual intervention, just by changing some settings.
You might also be interested in some Discover Dorico sessions, run by John Barron and best enjoyed with a good cup of tea, like this one on staff spacing:
Thank you, Lillie! I’m glad you pointed out the Casting Off option, and I will explore that. I actually did check out that very video you suggested prior to joining on here, (I searched Youtube for Dorico and Staff) and found it helpful. But in that moment I just wanted to find the answer to my one problem and get my work done, and didn’t have the patience to sit through it all. Next time I’ll try it with tea! 
