Barb,

Have you tried the Move Rests... plugin, rather than hiding? Use a large number to move the rests off the page.

Thanks for the tip.  However, when I enter a rest, the beam gets broken.

Document Options > Beams will give you the option to beam over rests, I believe.

Thanks Mike.  I found the option to beam over rests.  However, when I tried the move rests plugin, the beam moved to the same place that the rests did which is off the page.  I can create the LH for the marimba in layer 1 and it looks fine.  The RH marimba is where the beam moves with the rests.

After moving/hiding your rests, in Document Options you can adjust "Broken Beam Lengths".

However, if you change measure widths (for instance by dragging a measure to another system), you would need to adjust the secondary beams again. Therefore, once you have entered all the music and it looks the way you want - don't adjust the page layout any more.

Hello Michael,

Thank you so much for your help and advice!  You're the best.  Your work is spaced really nicely too. I am able to shorten the upper beams with the handles.  However, the secondary beams do not have any handles.  How can I access the secondary beam handles?

Barbara

You can't do it with Special Tools. Go to Document Options > Beams > Broken Beam Length, where you need to play around a little with the value until you achieve the correct length.

Thanks so much! I hope you have an awesome day!