I’m wondering if anyone could offer me some guidance on my Dorico 6 project.
Setup: My score is 15 staves per system (screenshot below). Staff 9 is a soloist that is not used until later, so I have ‘cutaway’ the staff until it is needed (mea. 48).
Issue: When I cutaway this staff, I lose the single vertical left side line that connects my system together. This makes it appear as a different system because it’s not connected.
If I remove the cutaway, the line is restored as it should be - connecting the entire system together.
I’ve searched the manual but can’t locate the fix for this.
Would you help me?
In Engraving Options > Cutaways > Preamble
That said, did you consider using hidden empty staff, rather than cutaway?
Awesome! I LOVE one-step solutions!!! Thank you Charles_piano.
It looks better now. But, I don’t know about hidden staves. Would that be a better solution?
I think a hidden staff might be the better choice for this. It’s not really what cutaways were designed for.
Cutaways leave space for the hidden staff; Hidden staves are removed and the remaining staves are spaced out. You can either set Layout Options to hide all empty staves; or use Manual Staff Visibility changes on System/Frame Breaks.
Note that your page is 126% full, so it’s really too full to accommodate the vertical spacings that you have set in Layout Options. (You’re never going to fit music in all three choirs with lyrics, as it is.)
You might want to consider a smaller staff size; or maybe smaller top and bottom margins.
Cutaways are mainly intended for creating effects like this one in the middle of a system:
If the instrument doesn’t play at all in a system, I’d rather use Hide Empty Staves, either as a global option or locally.
With a cutaway:
With a hidden staff:
