How can I create bars of equal width?

[Wesleighcat]

How can I create bars of equal width? I've created a page of notes and rests in the "leadsheet letter" template in sibelius 2. Each system has 4 measures and I'd like to make all the bars the exact equal width so that all of the barlines on the page would be in line.

Is there a way to do this without having to drag each bar?

Thanks!

[Lurker]

How can I create bars of equal width!

I'm afraid that this is the answer:-

Insert a fake part in which there are enough short notes to force the bars to be the same length - i.e. in a 2/4 bar you might have to have 8 semiquavers to keep the bars full enough.

You can do this for a single line score by using, say, voice 2. Use silent note-heads, and hide the whole of voice 2.

An alternative is to have an extra stave with the fake music. Again, use silent note-heads and hide. Then you can make the stave itself disappear (provided EVERYTHING is hidden) with Layout > Hide Unused Staves, or you can use Create > Staff Type Change > No Lines (Hidden) at the beginning (Sibelius 1 or 2), or you can select the staff and choose "No Lines (Hidden)" from the "Staves" section of the Properties Window (Sibelius 2 or 3).

The separate stave option makes it much easeir to input and indeed to later remove the fake notes.

[Wesleighcat]

Thanks for the suggestion! The both extra staff and the 2nd voice options have allowed me to create bars of the same width, however, I'm not having much success hiding either the "fake staff" or the 2nd voice.

When I used a "fake staff" and filled it with eigthnotes, then changed the noteheads to silent note heads, the stems and beams remain. I can hide those too but the staff refuses to hide.

When I tried the same with a 2nd voice, filtering and then hiding the 2nd voice, the 1st voice hides as well so when I printed I got blank manuscript with clefs and barlines.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Lurker]

filtering and then hiding the 2nd voice, the 1st voice hides as well !

.
I don't know how you managed this. In Sibelius 2 & 3, if you really select voice 2 ONLY (shortcut CTRL-SHIFT-ALT-2) then hide with CTRL-SHIFT-H, only voice 2 should hide, and should be visible as a grey ghost image if you have View > Hidden Objects switched on. If you're in the US the ghost image will be gray rather than grey, but will look quite similar.

Voice 1 should still be normal.

In Sibelius 1 you have to DELETE voice 2 (which turns into rests) and leave the (greyed-out) rests in place.

You also wrote > the staff refuses to hide.

You have to hide all the notes and rests with Triple Click then CTRL-SHIFT-H, as well as making them silent. You can then do the thing about hiding the lines. My way (using Sibelius 2) is to select the first bar itself (not a note or rest, so make sure there's a blue or purple rectangle around it) and use Create > Staff Type Change > No Lines (Hidden) and that really should do it.

Before you hide the stave this way, you might like to move it close to the stave you're keeping, to avoid too much space (though I often leave it there to MAKE more space between lines).

Maybe you just left out one of the steps, because all these work for me.