"Space staves evenly"?

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motet
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Post by motet » Sun Nov 12, 2017 5:30 pm

Someone on Facebook was asking for a way to respace staves on pages with only one system so that the staves fill out the whole page. One sees publishers do this rather than have the dreaded white space at the bottom. I've almost figured out how to do this manually by computing the distance between staves*, but it seems like someone would have wanted this by now and perhaps there's a way to do it without resorting to manual calculation I haven't discovered.

----

*This almost works, but is not quite right:

((page height - top page margin - bottom page margin) * 100 / system scaling - 96 - top system margin - bottom system margin) / (staves - 1)


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N Grossingink
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Post by N Grossingink » Sun Nov 12, 2017 6:27 pm

I do this all the time. Instead of a measurement, I use the percentage scaling (Space above each selected staff > Scale to XX%).

Just pick a percentage above 100% and hit OK. Repeat if necessary, scaling back the percentage as you near the finish point.

N.
N. Grossingink
Educational Band, Orchestra and Jazz Ensemble a specialty
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motet
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Post by motet » Sun Nov 12, 2017 7:09 pm

So, trial and error it sounds like. If you've "optimized", it could be different from page to page. Barring some way Finale or a plug-in can compute the optimal amount, I'd like to perfect my formula above. I'm using Excel, so I can post that if anyone's interested.

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N Grossingink
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Post by N Grossingink » Sun Nov 12, 2017 7:48 pm

motet wrote:I'm using Excel, so I can post that if anyone's interested.
I'd be interested, but I'm not sure I would ever abandon my system as described above. Most of my scores have differing stave spacing on each page, depending on the density or looseness of vertical space. Using a scaling percentage assures the same relative spacing between staves and either expands or contracts this spacing, as needed.

Ted Ross, in his music engraving book, advocates a similar approach. Of course, Ross describes techniques as applied to plate engraving, not digital engraving. He uses a strip of paper marked with ideal positions of each staff. If you run out of room at the bottom, you scale back each staff position. If you have white space, you increase the distance between staves by a scaled amount.

N.
N. Grossingink
Educational Band, Orchestra and Jazz Ensemble a specialty
Sample: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pFF5OeJDeLFGHMRyXrubFqZWXBubErw4/view?usp=share_link


Mac Mini 2014 2.6 Ghz, 8Gb RAM
OSX 10.15.7
Finale 2012c, 25.5, 26.3, 27.3

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motet
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Post by motet » Sun Nov 12, 2017 10:26 pm

I figured out--with much effort--how to compute the Space Above Each Selected Staff in Respace Staves to space staves evenly for a one-system page. It is (hold on tight)

((page height - top page margin - bottom page margin) * 960000 / staff height / scale system / scale page - 96 - top system margin - bottom system margin) / (staves - 1)

Units are EVPUs. The Respace Staves settings are sticky, which might help. Spreadsheet attached as zip.
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BuonTempi
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Post by BuonTempi » Mon Nov 13, 2017 8:00 am

motet wrote:perhaps there's a way to do it without resorting to manual calculation I haven't discovered.
You might try the Vertical Collision Remover, using settings a bit like these:
Screen Shot 1.png
Screen Shot 1.png (91.88 KiB) Viewed 3798 times
The VCR is additive, so running it again will add more space. I was going to post a thread about the VCR, so I'll enter more detail there.

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elbsound
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Post by elbsound » Mon Nov 13, 2017 1:55 pm

I am also working on an automatic score balancing plugin.
The VCR plugin is an option, but on the scores I tested it used to crash most of the time. Even very simply scores crashed (in 2014.5 and Fin25).

Here are some results of the current version of my plugin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgYjN2FoTNk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9KaxtMingU
Before-PDF After-PDF
There is also a more techical thread on this subject on the notat.io forum.

BuonTempi
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Post by BuonTempi » Mon Nov 13, 2017 5:53 pm

elbsound wrote: The VCR plugin is an option, but on the scores I tested it used to crash most of the time. Even very simply scores crashed (in 2014.5 and Fin25).
Even in 25.5? I think VCR was prone to some crashes on Windows, but I think they've been fixed. I've been experimenting with it this year on a Mac, and not had any crashes.

When will you release your plug-in...?

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