In the world of marching bands, for each part you have to fit a whole piece of music in a single landscape page. So you have to tweek the staff size a lot in order to get a proper readable part.
The problem in Dorico is that the option to change the staff size is in Setup Mode, so you can’t check it properly in the Engraving mode. You have to open Setup Mode, look for the option and then, open the engraving mode without closing the menu.
The worst part is that when you change a setting, you have to push “apply”.
I think this option (and the other engraving related ones that you can find in the Setup Mode) will be much more useful in Engraving mode, and easily accessible (in the lower zone or anything like that).
For this specific case, I’d suggest adding a frame break at the very start of the Layout, and choose “wait for next frame break”, so you have all music on one frame, on one page.
With the frame Break selected you can also easily and quickly change the space size.
Dear reztes,
If I am not mistaken, both page size, orientation, and staff rastral size are in Layout options. Yes, the icon for it is in Setup mode. But the shortcut (cmd-shift-L) works in write and Engrave modes as well. I suggest you use the shortcut as soon as possible!!!
Yes, MarcLarcher, I know you can access all the menus via shortcut from any part of the program. However, I don’t think it’s ideal. I can learn the shortcut but when then I could be weeks without using Dorico I may have forget the shortcut (happens all the time).
And there is the problem that it is not as quick as you may want if you’re working with the kind of parts I’m talking about.
At last, the final product is very good (that’s the very reason I switched from Sibelius to Dorico), but I think this kind of things could be done much more faster.
This is a very crowded part but also very readable for marching bands. Space is optimizad to fit the as music as posible in one page being readable. This publishing company was known for this kind of parts. They were handmade, but you may see what I would like to do.
Achieving this in Sibelius is imposible, in Dorico is just not as easy as it could be. This kind of parts are very useful to marching bands. In my country -Spain- there is A LOT of marching bands -Especially in Valencia- and we usually have to make this kind of music with this particular kind of engraving.
The sample you posted is quite easy to achieve in Dorico. Once the music and other items were entered, I could probably complete it in 5 minutes, using functions like “Make Into Frame” to force the staves onto the page, and then continuing to make slight manual adjustments until collisions are removed. But I concede it’s difficult to do intricate work in Dorico if you’re using it only occasionally. The more things a program can do, the more it takes to learn it.
One of the things that keeps Dorico’s UI from getting cluttered, it seems to me, is the ubiquity of keyboard shortcuts. In this case, Cmd-Shift-L (and its neighbors, -E and -N especially) which Marc referred to is so essential that you really should commit it to memory. Especially since you’re working with such tight part layouts.
And if you have these key commands in hand, they’re faster than using a mouse!
That’s super useful, dankreider I didn’t know the function (and in Spanish it has another name) and now I’m going to use it all the time. The only thing I miss is that in that very same menu, below the graphic slice button there was a size staff menu
However, now it’s much easier for me. Thank you very much.
I think you’ll find that if the frame break is selected, the properties panel “space size” does exactly what youre looking for - basically a quick way to see the new space size without the need to press apply.
One you found the right one, you can then set the space size in layout options for all parts.
I didn’t know the function (and in Spanish it has another name) and now I’m going to use it all the time. The only thing I miss is that in that very same menu, below the graphic slice button there was a size staff menu 
