Slur collision avoidance

By default, Dorico Pro automatically adjusts the shape and position of slurs to avoid collisions with items under their arc.

This means that if a notehead under a slur is either higher than the others under a slur curving upwards, or lower than the others under a slur curving downwards, the curvature of the slur is adjusted to avoid the collision and keep the notehead under the slur. You can manually disable collision avoidance for individual slurs.

In the Avoiding Collisions section of the Slurs page in Engrave > Engraving Options, you can choose options for how slurs are adjusted to avoid collisions, such as choosing a balance between changing the shape of slurs to compensate or moving the endpoints of a slur, and how asymmetrical slurs are allowed to be.

Figure: Slur with collision avoidance activated (default)

Figure: Slur with collision avoidance deactivated

Collision avoidance for cross-staff slurs

In the Avoiding Collisions section of the Slurs page in Engrave > Engraving Options, you can activate/deactivate collision avoidance for cross-staff slurs.

This avoids collisions, but due to the increased complexity in positioning slurs across staves, further manual adjustment in Engrave mode might be required.

Note

This setting does not apply to S-shaped slurs between staves, which do not have any collision avoidance.

Slurs bisecting flat accidentals

According to conventions in published music, slurs can bisect the stems of flat accidentals, but not sharps or naturals, to save vertical space.

You can choose not to allow slurs to bisect flat signs, or alter the maximum amount of the stems of flat signs that can protrude above slurs, on the Slurs page in Engraving Options.