Changing Vertical Spacing Between Staves and Systems

In general, Composer does a good job of vertically spacing staves within systems, and systems on a page, to evenly distribute space according to standard music engraving practices. There may be reasons, however, that you will want to override Composer's default vertical spacing of staves and systems.

Composer offers the following ways to change the relative spacing of staves and systems on a page:

Move a single staff up or down, relative to the position of the adjacent staves in the same system.

Move an entire system up or down, relative to the position of adjacent systems on the same page.

Stretch or compress the height of a system, so that staves within that system are evenly spread out or compressed together.

To change the vertical spacing between staves and systems:

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Type SHIFT+P. If this takes you to the Page Text Palette instead, type SHIFT+P a second time to go to the Page Layout Palette.

Composer will display the score in Page Layout View.

2.	Click the Move Barlines and Staves button in the Page Layout Palette.

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If you are not already in Select Mode, click the button in the main toolbar.

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hit the ENTER key.

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Right-click the mouse anywhere on the page.

After you have moved a system or staff, or stretched a system, the handle will be filled with a solid color, as illustrated here:

To restore a staff's or system's vertical position, or a system's vertical stretch, to the default:

2.	Enter Select Mode by clicking the Select Mode button in the main toolbar, or by hitting the ENTER key, or by right-clicking the mouse anywhere on the page.

The staff or system, and its handle, will be highlighted in blue:

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Click the Default button.

This restores the staff or system to its default vertical position, or the system to its default vertical stretch.