Big space in layout
See attached screenshot. What is causing the big vertical space between the two systems on the second page? Not wanted. How do I get rid of it?
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See attached screenshot. What is causing the big vertical space between the two systems on the second page? Not wanted. How do I get rid of it?
Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.
Comments
It's impossible to tell what is going on from a picture. Is that in the middle of a piece or at the end? What view is that picture from, Page View? Single Page? What page and style settings have you used? What else is in the score?
Please attach the score (,mscz file) so that someone can work out what it going on.
In reply to It's impossible to tell what… by SteveBlower
Yeah, easier to attach it. I haven't done any page/style changes, it's all a very vanilla project, some sections and weird time signature, that's all.
Goto Format->Style->Page and check "Disable vertical justification of staves"
In reply to Goto Format->Style->Page and… by Pentatonus
Fixed it. Thanks Pentatonus!
In reply to Goto Format->Style->Page and… by Pentatonus
This is not a good solution in general; it's a workaround to this problem that causes other problems. The cause of the problem is having poorly balanced pages that result in extra space on the last page that needs to go somewhere. The real solution is to balance the pages between to avoid the extra space. Disabling that option just bunches the extra space up at the bottom of the last page, which is not very professional either, and it also makes the spacing worse on all the other pages.
The best solution is to balance the pages better, such as by adding a page and system breaks. For instance, a page break at the end repeat before C (or at the end of the fourth system), then system breaks every two or three bars after that. And then maybe a spacer on the bottom of the last system to allow a little extra space at the bottom of the page if necessary.
In reply to This is not a good solution… by Marc Sabatella
The point of software is to be of aid, and here the user has started doing manually the layout, instead of the software doing it for the user. It kind of partly defeats the purpose. I would say it's a mess if it's a large complex score, one has to edit it, and each time go fixing all the different kinds of manual breaks.
I tried what you suggested, and I'd say it became "different". It is still trying to spread the systems across the whole page vertically, it is now just less because there's less vertical space due to less measures per system, it seems.
In that sense, in this case, I like the option, because it's straight forward: concatenate the systems one after another and leave the vertical space at the end of the last page.
In reply to The point of software is to… by fenglich
Indeed, the goal is for the software to do things well automatically, and perhaps a future version of MuseScore will try to apply AI to better balance pages for you. But meanwhile, it really is worth the extra minute it takes, as the workaround comes at a high price. And indeed, wait until you are mostly done before worrying about this, to reduce risk of needing to redo that worl.
It should be noted that it's a bug that there is so much space between systems on those underfull pages. There is a max system distance parameter that should be preventing that, but it isn't working correctly. This is already fixed in MuseScore 4.
But meanwhile, taking the right approach to layout will create a score that looks great in either version. I should mention, I've worked professionally as an editor for a major publisher, and these were the principles we followed.