System Margin Woes

[mark carlson]

I'm editing a piece by another composer, and I started by trying to reset the page and system margins, according to the requirements of the publisher.

I've tried setting the system margins for the attached piece to be .5" both on top and bottom, but it's obvious to my eye that the top system margin is much bigger than .5, and the bottom system is, I think, smaller.

What am I missing here? Why can't I get the top (and possibly the bottom) system margin to be the actual size that I set it to be?

The file is too big as is, so I will cut it down to the first few pages.

Thanks,

Mark

Mac OS 10.15.4
Finale 26.3

[motet]

You can't manually drag down the top margin past a certain point either--normally you can drag it all the way to the top line of the top staff. So your half inch is getting added to that. I don't know what causes it, though.

[zuill]

In the Staff Tool, there is a large space, almost an inch, above the top staff. Reduce that to zero for starters. Also, the fact that the top staff is reduced in size has some bearing on the look.

Zuill

[motet]

I tried selecting the top staff, and using Respace Staves, setting "Space before selected staff" to 0, but still I can't drag the margin down. Is there another setting?

[zuill]

I chose 0 above Top Staff.

Zuill

[motet]

If I do this:

0526.png

I still can't drag the top margin (system 23 shown here) any closer than this (it snaps back to here):

0527.png

[zuill]

In your picture, it looks like you only selected the first measure of the first system. I selected the entire top staff throughout the score.

Zuill

[mark carlson]

In the Staff Tool, there is a large space, almost an inch, above the top staff. Reduce that to zero for starters. Also, the fact that the top staff is reduced in size has some bearing on the look.

Zuill

Thanks! I think I got it back to what I consider normal by reducing the space above the top staff to 0.

[motet]

In your picture, it looks like you only selected the first measure of the first system. I selected the entire top staff throughout the score.

That was it. Since Respace Staves applies to the whole document, I had assumed that selecting one measure would suffice.