Variable Stretch
In some music notation programs I have used, if I want to stretch or condense the width of a measure, I can click on a corner and pull it. I have a four-part vocal score that has one orphan measure. If I allow MuseScore to stretch it out, it stretches it out all the way across the page; not a pretty look. But I haven't found the magic combination of numbers on the stretch page that will stretch the measure partway across the page; neither have I found any way to vary the spacing between notes to achieve the same effect. (The measure in question has some very short syllables and, consequently, a very jumbled appearance.) Am I missing something; or should this idea land on the feature request forum?
Thank you all.
Comments
There are different options to play with to layout your scores as you want :
Not to make things even more complex, but only for the sake of completeness, there is another score setting which I find useful:
"Style| | Edit general style", "Measure" tab, "Spacing" edit box. It is a score-wide setting and affects the spacing of all the measures of the score and of all the notes of a measure.
I use it to roughly set the amount of space (pages, ...) occupied by the score, then using the other commands given above by lasconic to polish the individual spare measure or the single too crowded or too loose line.
Some remarks on this setting:
1) A line can only contain an integer number of measures, so a small change of this setting may seem to have no effect; only when the change is large enough to force an entire measure to the next (or previous) line, you will see something happening.
2) The default (1.2) is rather on the tight side, I usually start with a 1.35 - 1.40 spacing value, to decrease it little by little if too many pages are used, but I try not to go below 1.30 anyway.
3) It also depends on the main destination vs. total size of the score: if it is for human playing, a compromise between a readable print-out and a limitation of the page turnings has to be struck. I usually find it better, if possible, compensating a wider spacing (larger measure spacing and layout add stretch) with a small decrease of the "Layout | Page setting", "Space" value rather than the other way around: the result is usually more readable (within limits!).
Hoping it is useful,
M.
One other useful trick for the last system specifically: ad a horizontal spacer after the last measure, and size it to take the amount of room you 'd like. Chances are, the measures on the last system will then automatically space themselves out to butt up against the spacer. if not, then play with the fill threshold as mentioned.