Hello! I’m using Dorico 5.
I’m having problems with staff space: I’m working on some over 13 flows pieces for more than 18 players with some of them playing more than one instrument. I generally edit parts when I have more than 5 flows written. I send the parts to de musicians and then keep writing more flows.
I have seen that the flows that I already edited sometimes are not fixed. I always Lock the layout, and the systems and measures are grouped as I did, but some flows have been vertically moved, especially when there are lots of signs and other information.
This is driving me crazy because I’m writing 3 repertoires for all those players at once so it’s a crazy amout of work having to remake the parts every time I write new flows!
I attach two screenshots, one of a part as I left it the last time I worked on the project and the other as I find it now after transposing a flow.
What do you mean by “transposing” a flow?
Is it possible that you made some changes to master pages in the meantime?
For starters, try to Reset Staff Spacing for the selected frame and see if this helps.
Many items seem to have changed place between edits, and since the page’s fill percentage is beyond 100%, Dorico doesn’t know what to do.
I believe that, in these cases, once you are happy with the casting off of a certain section, you also lock staff spacing by moving staves in custom positions so they won’t move again.
What I meant by “transposing” a flow was that I changed the tonality (sorry if I didn’t say it properly, I’m Spanish and sometimes I mess up speaking English).
In this case, I know for sure that I added a page before the messed-up flow, so I was wondering if maybe that is the motive why the vertical spacing was changed. Is it possible that a staff spacing edit is only saved as long as it remains in the page number it was done?
Would be a way to fix staff spacing? Do you mean that in orther to lock staff spacing I have to move ALL the staves to custom positions?
No problem, I’m no native English speaker either so we’re in the same boat
I’m not 100% sure, but I think that changing key/transposing shouldn’t mess with the layout too much (your two pictures appear to have the same key/pitch, that’s why I didn’t understand the ‘transposing’ thing)
Adding a page “may” alter the layout if, for any reason, you had one of the pages overridden somehow. If you override page 35, example, then insert a page before page 30, the page that was 34 will move to 35, and will get the overrides. That means, it will not shuffle forward. That is something that has driven me nuts several times, but it works in a similar way in all DTP softwares (InDesign, Publisher,…). So, this may be a cause…
Manual staff spacing shouldn’t be altered by this, though, and should correctly move between pages as long as frame breaks stay in place.
To be sure they don’t move I would chain them in place, even if this would be against Dorico’s philosophy (which works beautifully until the document passes a certain size).
If you want (can) post a stub of the project for us to give a look, or send via DM, I will gladly help!
It is certainly the case that if your music reflows such that a different number of systems fit on each page, the staff spacing adjustments will be removed, because they are indexed by page according to the number of systems on that page.
If you’ve already done a lot of formatting work in a part layout and then plan to make a massive change to the musical content, like transposing everything, you would be well-served by using the Lock Layout button in Engrave mode to ensure that the casting off cannot change as a result of those kinds of musical edits.
Hello Michele and Daniel, thanks for your quick replies!
I always us the Lock Layout button. It locks the number of bars per system but I have found that the staff spacing sometimes is changed even if I press the Lock Layout button. Is this because staff spacing is related to a particular page? I’m scared because I need to reflow a whole 18 flows piece for orchestra, and the Layouts are already edited. Will this change all my staff spacing edits? Is there any way to lock staff spacing?
Thank you very much!
Dani
If I’ve engraved the sixteenth movement in my project, but go back and add another flow somewhere before the one I’ve just finished engraving, does that affect the manual Staff Spacing I’ve made?
Because that just happened to me, and I’m getting slightly frustrated.
I’d engraved three flows in a musical I’m working on. But we added a new song to the top of the show, and now all the Staff Spacing adjustments I’d made have reset, though the layout (Frame/System Breaks, Dynamic appearance adjustments, etc.) remained the same.
Can you help here? And explain it to me like I’m 5, please.
If only Dorico’s automated spacing is involved, the page layout should not change, but if one has made any manual adjustments (“overrrides”) to a page, those changes stay with the page rather than with the music when one inserts new music earlier in the project.
That is why using system breaks and note-spacing adjustments that travel with the music they are attached to are preferable to staff adjustments such as those made by dragging in Engrave mode.
Ahh, that makes sense because it’s consistent with Dorico’s page-attached concept, which I’ll admit I disagree with.
It’s frustrating because I am, in fact, using proper System and Frame Breaks; however, I have a system with a top staff-attached dialogue block—as you know we do in MT, which is colliding with the page’s header, so I’d adjusted the vertical spacing to accommodate that instance, along with other staves in the middle of the page that have dialogue happening over a vamp.
And that setting fails to acknowledge the additional importance of wanting specific manual adjustments directly to song/movement/Flow in large pieces (such as musicals and operas) with dialogue cues, etc.
(P.S. I’m also a Virgo, so precise engraving is sooo essential for my sanity )
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