Page turns

A number of tools are at your disposal for adjusting the layout of your music to avoid awkward page turns. In SongWriter, this is often a two-step process—first, you arrange the measures (usually with a goal of placing rest measures at the end of a system). Second, you may have to move some systems from one page to another, so that the nearest rest measures fall at the bottom of a page.

To move individual measures from line to line, see Measure layout. To move systems from page to page, see below.

To push a system onto the next page

1. Click the Page Layout tool  .
2. Go to the page you want to change. Each system has a pair of handles (at diagonally opposite corners). In order to “push” the last system onto the following page, you’ll enlarge the space beneath the system preceding it.
3. Drag the lower-right handle of the second-to-last system downward. Drag just enough so that the last system disappears—it gets pushed onto the next page. If you want, choose Space Systems Evenly from Page Layout Menu to center the remaining systems on the page.
4. Choose Update Layout from the Edit Menu.

To fit an additional system onto every page

SongWriter always maximizes the number of systems on a page based on the distance you’ve set between systems, the page reduction, and the page margins. Therefore, there are a number of ways to fit an additional system on a page. If the problem is general (there are too few systems on every page), see the two subentries under Page layout —To change the distance between systems. Similarly, consider reducing all pages slightly to achieve the same effect (see Reducing/Enlarging). You probably shouldn’t try to fit another system by widening the page margins, because the default margin (1/2 inch) is already very close to the edges of the pages. 

To fit an additional system onto one page

1. Click the Page Layout tool  .
2. Go to the page to which you want to add a system. Each system has a pair of handles (at diagonally opposite corners). In order to “pull” a system from the following page, you’re going to reduce the space beneath each system on this page.
3. Drag the lower–right handle of the first system slightly upward. If this step didn’t solve the problem, drag the second system’s lower-right handle slightly upward, too (preferably by the same amount—watch the number boxes in Edit System Margins dialog box if you wish; they show how much you’re dragging each system – See Edit System Margins dialog box). Move the handles up until the system is pulled up.

If, despite all your efforts, it looks like the next system simply won’t fit without overlapping the existing systems, you’ll have to resort to one of the global system-fitting options (see Page layout—To change the distance between systems), or reduce the music (Reducing/Enlarging). 

4. Choose Update Layout from the Edit Menu.

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