[itsme]

Just a pointer to LiliPond which is quite similar to ABC and certainly is in a state of active development: https://lilypond.org/

The typical drawback is that you need quite some time of repeated usage to get efficient with those non-visual programs. You become familiar quite well with simple score styles, but as soon as something more elaborate is required you may have a hard time to find respective information to get/keep you going.

Cheers,
Petra

The most important drawback of Lilypond imho is that it doesn't support any export to other notation formats. At least the basic notation can be easily converted between ABC, Finale, MuseScore and Capella via Music XML. In Lilypond you're kind of "locked in". With musicxml2ly or abc2ly you can convert TO Lilypond, but as far as I know there's no way back.

[maintech]

I recommend that you first increment the staff space (sp) (Format - Page Settings... - Scaling) as desired. Then remove existing line breaks (Format - Add/Remove System Breaks - Remove current system breaks). If you don't like the resulting automatic system breaks and page breaks set them as you like via Add/Remove System Breaks or via drag&drop from the "Breaks & Spacers" palette.

For further questions just search or ask in the MuseScore forum https://musescore.org/de/forum. You can find many competent, helpful and patient guys there that answer your questions in English and German.

thanks, I'll try that, 

David