Increase number of bars per system, and shift systems up and down

• Mar 7, 2022 - 21:21

Hi, I'm a newbie here, and liking a lot about Musescore. But £ things I can't see how to do, that I could do using Finale previously:
1) How to tell it to squeeze more bars into a system, to have logical system breaks and/or fit more music on a page.
2) How to move systems up and down to have different breaks between. I can see how to increase gaps between systems by adding a Space, but I can't see how to reduce the space between staves.
3) How to reduce or enlarge all the staves, eg large staves for children's notation, smaller staves to fit more on a page.
All help gratefully received, thanks.


Comments

1) https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/breaks-and-spacers and/or https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/layout-and-formatting#layout-stretch will cover squeezing and breaking of measures/systems

2) MuseScore usually starts from the minimal system between systems and only distributes the remaining free space between them after those first calculations. To move a certain spot closer use a fixed spacer to be found out about in the handbook page linked in answer 1

3) Format → Page Settings → Scaling as per https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/page-settings

In reply to by jeetee

Many thanks - the Format>Page Settings> Scaling has done what I wanted - fitting more staves on the page and also more bars per stave (I guess this is because each stave is a bit smaller). Basically I've both fitted the music I want on to one page, and fitted 8 bars on to a line (which I think is called a system) in order to make it clearer for the players.

Generally you get the best results with the least effort by setting the minimum spacing, staff and/or system distance to what you want the small to be, then letting MuseScore add more space as needed. It does a good job of balancing things from there, especially if you also add system and page breaks as needed. These settings are in Format / Style / Measure (for spacing) and Format / Style / Page (for the staff & system distance).

If you attach your score and describe in more detail what you are trying to achieve, we can understand and assist better.

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