General placement conventions for hairpins relative to barlines

In Dorico Pro, the ends of hairpins align with the left edge of the note to their right.

Hairpins that end on the first note of a bar extend across the preceding barline in certain cases.

  • If there is not an immediate dynamic on the first note in the next bar.

  • If there is a time signature or key signature change at the barline which increases the gap between the end of the current bar and the first note in the new bar.

Dorico Pro avoids hairpins overlapping barlines by a small amount, as this is less visually clear. However, this means that the same dynamic phrase on two different staves can appear differently if one of the staves does not have the barline extending below it.

You can change this default behavior and stop all hairpins project-wide from crossing barlines if the hairpin ends on the first note in the next bar. This ensures all applicable hairpins appear the same length. You can also change the minimum distance before hairpins are allowed to extend beyond barlines.

Figure: The ends of the two hairpins are not aligned despite their duration being identical, as the barline does not extend to the bottom staff of the system.