It’s common practice to indent the first system of a piece—not only for aesthetic reasons, but often to allow room for staff names to be written out in full. The following instructions show you how to indent or move a single system; if you want to indent all systems, a better method would be to simply increase the page margin. See Margins for full instructions.

To indent or move a system

1. Click the Page Layout tool  . Each system is surrounded by a dotted-line rectangle.
2. Go to the page containing the system you want to change.
3. To indent a system, drag its upper-left handle. To move a system, click within the staff lines and drag.
4. Instead of dragging, you can enter values directly into the number boxes. See Edit System Margins dialog box for more information.
5. When you’re viewing Staff Systems, you’ll notice a boldface number to the right of each system. The numbers on the systems (the first system is number 1) help you identify each system, so you’ll be aware if the system layout has shifted.
6. Choose Utilities > Update Layout.

Note. To change the vertical spacing of systems on any number of individual pages, use the Space Systems plug-in.

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