Sometimes when I’m in “Engrave” mode and I move a dynamic up or down, the staff spacing for the whole frame will change on its own. For example, this is what the frame looks like before I move the cello dynamics in mm. 132 and 134 down a little bit:
Take a look at Layout Options → Vertical Spacing. It lets you set ideal and minimum gaps between staves, You’ll need to experiment. Because Dorico’s layout engine is very dynamic, these things can and do happen. But you should be able to control it as desired.
As Andro says: Dorico’s Vertical Justification settings kick in when the page fullness (normally shown in the bottom of the page in Engrave mode) goes over a certain percentage.
What’s happening here is that Dorico is filling the page only by increasing the gap between systems, not between staves.
I recommend setting the 2nd percentage in Layout Options > Vertical Spacing > Vertical Justification to 100%.
Thank you Andro and benwiggy. Those are both good suggestions.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not in front of Dorico atm…
Much of the confusion concerning vertical spacing seems to stem from the fact that justification is pretty much the only area influenced by Engrave Mode edits, right?
Like, if reversal marks and tempo text and the like interfere with each other and mess up vertical spacing, only Write Mode edits will remedy the situation.
Here, dragging a dynamic in Engrave will possibly have a huge effect…
B.
