I don’t seem to be able to get staves to be evenly spaced vertically. I’ve watched a video on this and the screen shots are not the same as on my screen. Maybe the version I am using (5.1.60) has improvements.
Even so, I have clicked what I believe to be the appropriate options but the spacing hasn’t changed and the staves are still unevenly spaced. Any guidance would be much appreciated.
Hello Chris,
can you show us a screenshot or even upload the project, so we can see what you are talking about?
Not sure if I have uploaded the file correctly.
The red lines over the first 4 systems mean that you changed that spacing by hand. If you select the boxes on the left of those systems (note that the first system has one above and below) and hit Backspace to remove the manual changes, then everything will pop into place.
Thank you for that. So if any manual adjustments have been made these cannot be overridden? Except by removing each occurrence.
I have noticed that if I increase the distance between the staves in one system, the systems do not automatically reposition equally. How do I achieve that.
And is there a way to position the staves in each system to be the same if needed…
You can remove all staff spacing changes in Engrave menu>Staff Spacing.
I’d suggest that trying to sort out the spacing before you’ve entered the music is like icing the cake before you’ve baked it. Or something.
The notation on the staves is going to affect how the page is laid out.
You should not make any manual adjustments at all. This is not Finale.
There are several settings in Layout Options > Vertical Spacing. The most significant one in your case is Inter-system gap.
Sorry, this isn’t quite right in my opinion. Better to say that you shouldn’t start with manual adjustments. But if you are engraving at the highest level for print production, you’ll absolutely be touching almost everything eventually. It’ll just be the last step, and only as needed, not the first step.
Of course, I agree, but this doesn’t look like the print production level.
OK. I’ll try to work the Dorico way but when you’ve used Finale for over 30 years it’s hard to change.
I know, I’m exactly in the same situation, but you will notice that Dorico’s layout skills makes the life a lot easier.
The essential thing to know is that Dorico includes collision avoidance by default. In Finale a high note might easily crash into a dynamic mark on the previous system until you manually run a spacing routine or something. (My memory of this is foggy.) In Dorico that’s operating all the time, so it’s better to enter all the music first and only then see how you’d like to alter the layout.