There is plenty of room to improve Finale - kerning

[OCTO]

shot 3.jpg (66.5 KiB) Viewed 13524 times

How about Product A, B, C or D?

[tisimst]

How about Product A, B, C or D?

That is Product B

[Knut]

Here's Dorico with 'Optical spacing for beams between staves' checked:

Skjermbilde 2016-11-11 kl. 17.39.16.png (84.97 KiB) Viewed 13517 times

As pointed out in a previous thread, Dorico, like Lilypond, handles the notes within each beam group nicely, but not the notes surrounding each group.

In this particular case, I am not wild about the Dorico's default beam placement either, which seems to be based on centering the beams between the staves.

[tisimst]

Here's Product C:

LilyPond-cross-staff-beams-and-kerning.png (30.67 KiB) Viewed 13516 times

[Knut]

Is that all default settings tisimst?

[tisimst]

Pretty much! The only thing I had to do was give it permission to put the second beam between the staves (it chose to put it above the group for some reason), but everything else is default settings--beam slopes/positions, stem positions, etc.

[OCTO]

What about IF your measure is much wider than regular? Double length?

[tisimst]

Here's two other expanded measure lengths for comparison with the default spacing (top):

LilyPond-cross-staff-beams-and-kerning-multiple-lengths.png (45.46 KiB) Viewed 13475 times

I suspect Dorico will do the same, but I'm not at my normal computer to check.

[tisimst]

Here's Product E (same spacing at any measure width):

MuseScore-2.0.3-cross-staff-beam-and-kerning.png (16.79 KiB) Viewed 13474 times

[John Ruggero]

+1 OCTO. It is really disgraceful that Finale cannot handle something like this after all of these years.

[/quote]

I am not wild about the Dorico's default beam placement either, which seems to be based on centering the beams between the staves.

Would it make a difference if you moved the staves closer together? Does Dorico do a better job? But maybe Dorico cannot yet do that?

Also, I do want to reiterate that the two staves of piano music appear best "forced' apart by what is between them; otherwise there is too much white space on the page and also harder to read.