I'm using Sibelius 4.1.5 with the v0.9.7 Sibelius 4 template. In some indoor music that I'm writing, some of the instruments have around 20 measures of rests at the beginning of the piece. When I view this instrument parts by themselves, there is a one bar rest, a 12 bar rest, and then another 8 bar rest. I have tried numerous things to consolidate these rests, but to no avail.

To test this problem, I tried loading a brand new blank template and then turned off the TACET option in autolayout. I then viewed one of the parts and saw a one bar rest, then a 12 bar rest, then a 50 bar rest. Any ideas on how to consolidate these?

Is there something happening in the score that we're not aware of?  For example, bar numers, double bars, key changes, time changes.  Anything like that would affect each instrument.

No, there's nothing extra. I'm achieving this by simply opening up the Sibelius template, switching the view to one of the parts, and then turning off the ";Empty sections between barlines"; option under Auto Layout. Once I do that, I see a one bar rest, then a 12 bar rest, then a 50 bar rest. Could someone try this to see if this problem is reproducible?

Email me the file, if you don't mind, to bill_castillo@sbcglobal.net and I'll take a look at it.

Check the multimeasure rest options in Sibelius, or maybe try selecting the ";reset positioning"; option in the score. If there is something hidden that's attached to some of those measures (like dynamics or expression text), they may not get grouped as multimeasure rests because there's ";content"; attached.

Since this is a Sibelius related question, you may also find some helpful suggestions on their support forums at http://www.sibelius.com