Staff Space Fixed Down
I'm creating a student workbook with multiple exercises on each page. I'm using staff space fixed down to create a smaller distance between staves within an exercise and letting default spacing create spaces between exercises. The staff space fixed down works fine most of the time, but sometimes it doesn't do anything at all. Other times, it works until I save and then it returns to the default spacing.
You can see this in the uploaded file. Eg. exercise 6.18, 6.32, 6.33, 6.34, etc.
I'm running MuseScore 3.6.2
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Unit 6 Mallets.mscz | 159.69 KB |
Comments
Are you still running 3.02?
Try: Format/Style/Page-Disable vertical justification...
In reply to Are you still running 3.02?… by Shoichi
the score clearly is from MuseScore 3.6.2. But is also clearly started its life before 3.6.0.
I would suggest doing this the other way around, though - letting the default contriol the spacing within exercises, and using ordinary spacers to add more between exercises. That's more how the program is designed to work and in general things should go more smoothly that way. Yu can create a customized spacer on your palette that is exactly the size you want to make it easy to add between exercises.
In reply to I would suggest doing this… by Marc Sabatella
I tried this method and it doesn't give the results I'm hoping for. On the attached file, I left the formatting that was working on pages 2 and 3. Using this formatting, I think it's very clear that both lines of exercise 6.9 and 6.14 belong together due to the smaller spacing between the staves within them which is why I was hoping to continue using it.
When I used the spacers between the exercises, it is not nearly as clear...particularly on pages 4, 6, and 8. In fact, the default spacing within exercises on page 8 is the same as the "extra" space I put between them using the staff space fixed down tool. If I add any more space, it pushes things onto the next page.
What baffles me the most is why this works sometimes but not others. Thanks for your help!
In reply to I tried this method and it… by Compostbob
You are still using the special "fixed" spacer. I'm saying, don't use that, use the ordinary type instead, which is for ensuring at least that much spacer but otherwise allows the layout algorithms to do their job normally. In other words, no fixed spacers at all, anywhere, but regular spacers between all exercises, consistently.
In reply to You are still using the… by Marc Sabatella
Which spacer is the ordinary one? "Staff spacer down", "Staff spacer up", something else?
In reply to Which spacer is the ordinary… by Compostbob
Yes those 2
In reply to Which spacer is the ordinary… by Compostbob
Either up or down are fine, depends on which staff "needs" the extra spacer. for example, if you know you always want extra space below one given staff regardless of what might change in the next system, use down on thatstaff. Vice versa if it's the lower staff that will always need the extra space. In your case, it's kind of six or one, half dozen of the other - these are two separate exercises, so you want the extra space between them, and you want it to remain that way regardless of what changes you make to either of them. Logically, I think of the space as "belonging" to the first measure of the new exercise, so I'd probably add a spacer up there. That or a spacer down on the last measure of the old exercise.
The point being, the regular spacers do what they say - they allocate space. If there is already enough space, they do nothing, which is what you normally want, and how the layout algorithm is designed to work - spacing things evenly and filling the page but making sure there is at least the requested amount of space between specific systems that for whatever reason might require more.
The fixed spacer is for very special situations where regardless of what else is going on elsewhere on the page, you know you always will want exactly some very specific amount of space on the page. This is seldom the case in real life, as it normally leads to erratic spacing in most real world situations, and sometimes it's just incompatible with other settings in the page style settings.
In your particular case, what probably makes most sense is to disable vertical justification of staves unless you plan to have some systems with more than two staves, then set the max system distance to be not much more than the min and use that range for the systems within an exercise, but use a spacer that is slightly more than the max between exercises. Then everything should flow smoothly.