Last Page Layout Spacing Issues
Dear MuseScore support,
I'm having trouble adjusting the spacing on the last page of my music. It's a piano arrangement, 6 pages long, 4 staves on the first page (which works because it allows space for the title and the copyright at the bottom), 5 staves on the next 4 pages and only 3 staves on the last page. But there is a lot of awkward space between the staves on the last page. I'd rather that the song end with the space at the bottom of the last page, like how a chapter ends in a book halfway down the page.
This arrangement was originally written in Sibelius and transferred to MuseScore as a MusicXML file. In that version, the spacing appears as I want it. But when I created a new score in MuseScore and copied and pasted, it seems that all of the spacing is the same, except that the last page has those weird spaces between the staves.
I've included screenshots of the last page. The one with all the spaces at the end was created by opening a new score in MuseScore. The one with less spaces is the MusicXML file loaded into MuseScore. Does someone know how to adjust the space on the last page to go back and forth between these two options?
Thanks for your help!
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Comments
Disable Format > Score > Vertical alignment
In reply to Disable Format > Score >… by Jojo-Schmitz
Thanks for the reply Jojo. I tried going to Format > Style > Score > Vertical alignment range which has three options (System, Segment, Measure). I am unsure what is meant to change in these three options. I tried clicking each and neither seemed to change any formatting in my music. I may be doing it wrong. I also tried adjusting the "Min. vertical distance" which caused the distances between staves to change throughout the entire piece of music which isn't what I want. I want to only adjust the spacing between staves on the final page. Let me know if I misunderstood your instructions. Thanks.
In reply to Thanks for the reply Jojo. I… by Daniel Fifield
I don't think that is the setting I meant, but can't check the right one as I'm not at my computer
In reply to Thanks for the reply Jojo. I… by Daniel Fifield
The setting that was meant is one Format / Style / Page. Actually, disabling vertical justification really isn't the right thing to do, but it it does help workaround a bug in the setting that should control that spacing.
Either way - with the extra space in the middle, or the extra space on the bottom - it looks not great. Much better to simply add a page break on the second page so there are 4 systems per page rather than 4 + 5 + 3.
FWIW, I have a free weekly newsletter that goes out on Tuesdays, the one that went out today (just a few minutes ago actually) covers this exact situation:
https://ckarchive.com/b/p9ueh9hwlxz2
See https://masteringmusescore.com for more info.
In reply to Either way - with the extra… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks Marc. I appreciate the advice. Although I still haven't figured out how to adjust the spacing between staves on the last page in cases where there are less than 4, in the end, I just adjusted the page breaks to 3 pages of 4 staves and 3 pages of 5 staves. It does look better that way.
In reply to Thanks Marc. I appreciate… by Daniel Fifield
The point here is, no matter what you do, there is going to be a lot of extra space - either between systems, within systems, or at the bottom of the page - and there is no way to make that look good. So it's almost never the right thing to even try. But to control the minimum and maximum spacing between staves within systems, between systems, the bottom of the page, and more, there are a whole slew of settings in Format / Style / Page.
In reply to The point here is, no matter… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks ver much, Marc for your help!