Thanks for the suggestion. I was eventually able to get this to work, but sometimes it still created a new empty measure and either:
- first brought the OTHER measures up from former system 2, then moved everything back down when I tried to paste the cut measure, or
- as soon as I tried to paste it would delete the new measure and leave the new system with one measure, and the next line with all but the cut measure (sometimes with an empty skinny measure).
Finally, one time it changed the next three lines to 3 measures each (which is what I was aiming for), leaving an empty measure where the cut one used to be. I was never able to just paste that measure back in; ultimately I had to re-notate it.
At the next four-measure line, when I told the last measure to move to a new system, it correctly used two of the following measure to make a three-measure line! I was thrilled (so I immediately saved the file, of course!). But the following line only had two measures in it; cutting the first measure of the next system to try to pull it back into the prior system again just created a skinny empty measure, and pulled the following measure up instead. Again, trying to paste the cut measure messed up all the spacing... I had to re-notate that one too. Buit then the rest of the piece properly had three measures to each system.
So, ultimately I was successful, but I somehow think that I was using workarounds (having to re-notate any cut measures), and this makes me worried that If I try to add measures (say, in order to add first and second endings, etc.), that I'll never be able to get it to do that without basically knowing in advance exactly what my notes and measures and whether they should be repeats or 2nd endings, etc. should be. There must be a way to do this easily, or a way to learn how (I can't be the only absolute beginner ).
Thanks again for your help,
-Claudia