Time Signature changes result in measure spacing problems

[composerpierson]

I’m having an issue with changing time signatures, particularly once I’m ready to engrave.

When changing the time signature to “absolute” and to centered within each grouping all the measures in the piece suddenly become either way to enlarged or squished together. This only happens when using the “absolute” setting (which IMO is essential because different TS sizes depending on the staff doesn’t look polished to me).

I’m using the most current version of Dorico. I have tried resetting everything in the staff settings of engrave mode and all of that stuff - to no avail.

Thoughts?

[Christian_R]

@composerpierson

using the “absolute” setting (which IMO is essential because different TS sizes depending on the staff doesn’t look polished to me).

Hi @composerpierson, and welcome to the Forum.

I don’t know if I understand your issue correctly, or if this can be of some help, but: instead of changing the Font Style of TS to absolute, to avoid different sizes, you can try to put all three Engraving options for the scale factor to the same desired amount:

@composerpierson

all the measures in the piece suddenly become either way to enlarged or squished together.

It would be helpful to see the Dorico project, to check what is happening.

Here more info (click to expand):

@dspreadbury

4. Post a project, not a picture
If you are having a problem with Dorico, the fastest way to get the help you need is to post the project, or a part of it, and not to post a screenshot. If you post a picture, you will almost certainly find that the first person to respond to your thread asks you to post the project. You may be concerned that the musical content of your project will be judged, or stolen. While we cannot guarantee that this will not happen, because of the supportive nature of the forum, this is vanishingly unlikely. There may be copyright or confidentiality restrictions that prevent you from posting the whole project. That’s fine! It’s always better in any case to cut the project down to a smaller size to attach it, particularly because there is a 4MB file size limit on attachments.

To cut down your project, first do File > Save As to save your project under a new name, to avoid making unwanted changes to your working project. If the project contains multiple flows, delete all flows except for the one that exhibits the problem. If the project contains multiple players, delete all players except for the one that exhibits the problem. If the problem is isolated to a particular bar or passage, then use the Shift+B popover to remove all other bars (e.g. select a note or rest in the bar after the problem passage, type Shift+B and enter a huge negative number like -9999 to delete all of the remaining bars in the flow).

Once you have cut down the project to the minimum scope that reproduces the problem, in Play mode choose Play > Playback Template and reapply the default playback template, or choose Silence. This dramatically reduces the file size of the project after you have deleted most of its musical material, because it removes the saved audio engine state.

Finally, attach the Dorico project it to your post.

If you want to add a picture as well (perhaps annotated to show where the problem exists), then by all means do so. But if your problem relates to a specific situation you’re experiencing in your project, you are guaranteed to get a more helpful answer more quickly when you include a suitable project file to reproduce the problem.

[composerpierson]

Ok, you are awesome - that worked perfectly! (truth be told, it actually worked better and lined the TS’s up prettier too). Thank you!