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. This can include hairpins extending across barlines.

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

  • If there is no immediate dynamic on the first note in the next bar.

  • If there is a time signature or key signature change at the barline that 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 a barline join extending below it.

You can allow/disallow hairpins across barlines if the hairpin ends on the first note in the next bar. Disallowing hairpins across barlines ensures hairpins appear the same length on all staves. You can also change the minimum distance before hairpins are allowed to extend beyond barlines.

Figure 1. 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.