Making selections into systems

You can force all musical material between two selected rhythmic positions into a single system; for example, if you want specific bars to appear in the same system.

Prerequisite

  • You have allowed/disallowed breaks within bars.

  • The left zone is shown.

  • Graphic Editing Graphic Editing button is selected in the Engrave toolbox.

Procedure

  1. In Engrave mode, select an item at the rhythmic position that you want to be the start of the system.
    Note

    We recommend that you select noteheads or barlines. Selecting other items, such as slurs, can cause system breaks to be inserted earlier/later than you might have intended.

  2. Ctrl/Cmd-click one of the following:

    • A notehead that you want to be at the end of the system

    • An item that you want to be at the start of the next system

  3. In the Format Systems section of the Formatting panel, click Make into System .

Result

A fixed system is created by inserting system breaks at the start/end of your selection. The system contains all musical material between the two selected items.

If breaks are disallowed within bars, the first break snaps to the barline before the earliest selected item, while the second break snaps to the barline after the last selected item.

If breaks are allowed within bars, the content of the system depends on your selections.

  • If you selected items, such as barlines or slurs, the start of your first selected item is positioned at the start of the system, and the end of your last selected item is positioned at the start of the next system.

  • If you selected noteheads, the last selected notehead is also included in the system, rather than being positioned at the start of the next system.

  • If you selected ties, all musical material between the first and last notes tie chains is included in the system, regardless of where in the tie chains you made selections.

Note

The system break inserted at the start of the selection has Wait for next system break activated in the Format group of the Properties panel by default. Because this property tells Dorico Pro to include all music in the system until the next system break or the end of the flow, if you later delete subsequent system breaks, this can create very full, tightly spaced systems.

Deactivating Wait for next system break allows Dorico Pro to cast off subsequent music as normal.