Design Mode

Design mode lets you hand-tune the engraving of a specific system when the automatic layout doesn’t land exactly where you want it. It’s for polish — nudging a system break, widening a dense measure, or giving a staff a bit more breathing room.

Activate it by selecting Design in the tool palette on the leading edge of the score.

Selecting a System

Click anywhere on a system to select it. A ruler appears along the bottom edge and a set of pill handles appears on the left. The system is now editable — every other system stays locked.

What You Can Drag

• System edges (top, bottom, left, right) — drag to resize or reposition the whole system on the page
• Staff spacing handles — small pills in the vertical center of the system, between each pair of staves. Drag up or down to change the gap between staves
• Lane guides — pills on the left of the system, one per lane (chord names, lyrics, dynamics, etc.). Drag to reposition the lane above or below the staff
• Beat columns — tick marks in the bottom ruler, one per beat. Drag horizontally to adjust the space around that beat — useful for making room for a dense chord or closing up a gap

On iPhone and iPad, the hit targets are larger than on Mac to accommodate touch.

Resetting

Design-mode edits are per-system overrides. To clear them and return to automatic layout, open the Score Style dialog and reset the relevant values — or delete the system’s override and Reflow will re-engrave it from scratch on the next edit.

Printing

Design-mode adjustments are saved with the document and appear identically in print, PDF, and image exports.