Openscore: Rules/suggestions for scaling staff space and adjustments staff/system distance

Perhaps adjusting Page's "Staff Distance" to 12.5sp? and additionally settting scaling to "1.000mm" , but in this case it will make a page break

To answer your specific question, go to Style menu > General > Bar and set Spacing to 1.0.

• This sets the "stretch" to the smallest value everywhere.
• Now you can safely increase the stave space to 1.330 mm without creating additional page breaks.

How to find the best layout settings in general

TLDR

It doesn't really matter if the music is small and/or there is wasted space at the bottom of each page.

• Use any layout and spacing settings that preserve the line breaks and page breaks from the original.
• I will find the optimum settings for you once the score has been submitted.

Long answer

It is not possible to know what the best layout and spacing are until the entire transcription is complete.

The optimum stave space (sp) value is the largest possible value that:

• keeps all the music visible (no instruments disappear off the bottom of the page)
• keeps line breaks and page turns in the same places as the original (where practical)
• is no larger than the default value of 1.764 mm.

The optimum value is likely to change as you progress with the transcription, so you don't know what the final value will be until right at the end.

I recommend these settings for the template score...

• Add line breaks and page breaks to match the PDF for the first 2-3 pages.
  • This makes it easier to keep track of where you are in the transcription.
• Go to Style menu > General > Bar and set Spacing to 1.0
  • This sets the "stretch" to the smallest value everywhere.
  • This makes it easier to match the line and page breaks of the original.
• Go to Layout menu > Page Settings and set the Stave Space (sp) to a "safe" value.
  • A safe value is one small enough that you don't have to keep adjusting it.
  • The safe value is less than the optimum value.

While doing the transcription

Continue adding line and page breaks to match the original score. You may find places where your "safe" stave space value is not as safe as you thought and you need to reduce it even more to keep the line and page breaks matching the original. This is OK, just go ahead and set it to a new safe value.

Once you have finished the transcription

You might be asked to make changes, so go ahead and submit the score as it is (i.e. with a safe value for the stave space). Once the score has met all the other requirements I will find the optimum stave space value myself.

How to find the optimum stave space value?

You don't need to do this, but here is how I do it in case you are interested.

1. Make sure the score is set up properly:
   • Manual line and page breaks everywhere to match the original
   • Style menu > General > Bar, Spacing set to 1.0
2. Go to Layout menu > Page Settings and set the Stave Space to something stupidly small (e.g. 0.1)
   • This ensures that line and page breaks occur only where you inserted manual breaks.
3. Scroll to the final page of the score (press the "End" key, or Fn+Right on a Mac).
   • Check that the page number and measure number match those in the PDF.
   • Keep this page in view while you adjust the stave space again.
4. Go back to Layout menu > Page Settings and keep increasing the Stave Space until you find the optimum value.
   • As soon as an extra page is needed you know you've gone too far!

Finding a sensible stave space value

Ideally all line and page breaks should match the original, but strictly enforcing this rule could result in:

• music being really small and difficult to read
• lots of space being wasted at the bottom of each page

To avoid these, I might do the following:

1. Move some line or page breaks forward or back a few measures
   • only do this in a few strategic places, where it enables a significant increase in stave space
2. Replace some page breaks with line breaks
   • again, only in a few strategic places
3. Decide to use fewer systems per page than the original
   • using one system per page instead of two basically allows you to double the stave space size, while keeping the line breaks in the same places.

All of these steps were necessary for Mozart's Symphony No. 41 ("Jupiter"), which was based on this PDF.

Use the same values for all movements

All movements should have the same layout and style settings, but the optimum stave space value is likely to be different for each movement. The optimum value must be found for each movement, and then the smallest value used for all of the movements.

(In practise it is not necessary to find the optimum value for all the movements. Simply take the optimum value for the first movement and use it for all later movements. If you find that a later movement requires a smaller value then go back and change the previous ones.)