I am working on an opera. For the opera there is a full orchestral score and a piano-vocal score. I have both scores in the same Dorico project, since (obviously) the two books share all the vocal staves.
At this point in the project, I have formatted every page of the vocal score (~390 of ‘em), and I’m happy with the results. Now I’ve started to create new layouts for the full score.
I immediately saw a problem with the full score’s engraving of staff labels, they are too close to the brackets:
Greg, first of all, if you are happy with your local store (I mean vocal score), export it as Graphics/.pdf. Then make a copy of your main project file, go to the relevant Engraving Options and set them to Factory Default. How does the result look in Full Score and Vocal Score?
Sometimes these issues originate from a font issue? Have you changed or are you using a dedicated font for your project?
Another place you could check: does your Short Instrument Name “Abd. ” inadvertently have a space after its name?
The basic problem is that the “Start of System” horizontal position is a global setting in the project, unless I’m wrong, and can’t be set on a per-layout basis. This makes it hard to see how I can keep my piano-vocal score and full score in the same Dorico project. But I really, really can’t split them into two projects, without creating a support nightmare, because both projects need to share a large set of vocal staves.
do you use specific unusual or incompatible fonts in your project?
have you checked the instrument spelling for unwanted spaces?
You should not be having the problems you describe, so lets try to circle in the project.
I appreciate your interest!
Here is an example project file. My question is, how can I decrease this gap in the PV Score layout, without ruining the staff label spacing in the Full Score layout?
Yes: the staff labels are right-aligned (in Paragraph Styles), so they are all going to line up to the right-hand edge. Piano can’t be any further right, so that’s the one that defines the distance.
The alternative would be to use centred staff labelling, which is also a very common style. But this would give smaller labels larger gaps, of course.
TBH, I don’t think the gap is a cause for concern. There are countless publications that look exactly like this.
Thanks, this did trigger a “hack” in my mind: just add two spaces after the names of instruments and do not add space after singers. Then set the staff label spacing to be equal for bracketed and non-bracketed staves.
A little tedious, but at least I only have to do it once.
