NOTATIO

Does anyone know what's up with the way Dorico spaces the first notation element at the beginning of the bar? With the default settings it very often has a gap there that is at least one space wide, sometimes up to about two spaces. There should generally be about one space before the first note or accidental in my view.

Have you looked at Engraving Options>Spacing Gaps>Gaps before bar lines? I think Dorico has an "ideal" 1.25 space gap from note head to left bar line. Other elements like accidentals cut into that space, which is what I am accustomed to seeing in published music. Finale has a default of 1.33 space, but the default doesn't allow the accidental to cut into the 1.33; you have to specify that under Document Options> Accidentals> Adjustment at Start of Measure.

Have you been a Finale user? Perhaps you have become accustomed to seeing a large space before an accidental if you didn't change the Accidental adjustment. This doesn't answer the question of why you are seeing such a large gap before note heads. however. Perhaps you changed the default accidentally? You might also check over at the Dorico forum.

No I didn't use Finale, but Sibelius. Yeah, I will have to keep adjusting the settings. I learned the Ted Ross settings initially but I need to review them.

I noticed the other day that Dorico had really put too much space (for my taste) in front of the leftmost note-attached objects. I've been in the process of notating a bunch of sticky scenarios that can come up and trying to arrive at some efficient "most of the time" settings but it's taking a lot of experimentation.

I've only switched over permanently to Dorico fairly recently and it's the same with me. Constant fiddling with the settings. But it was the same with Finale. Then after many years I had everything exactly like I wanted for a year or two and they pulled the plug.