The opening splash screen in Dorico, is the Learn tab
with the “Introduction to note input” the first tutorial showing.
You might already be past this point now, but as you see there are others there ready for you to consume 
And the Learning resources has a One-to-one training if that might help get you started.
Glad you are still here asking.
You’re my hero! 
Thanks!
Dorico isn’t changing anything. If you want a half note, and input a half note, Dorico WILL give you a half note. The numbers on the keyboard are one digit different. 7 is a whole note in Finale, it’s a half note in Dorico. Yes, that takes some getting used to. The numbers can be reprogrammed to match Finale, I think there’s a video on how to do it.
One of the first things I did! For literally everything else, I try to do the Dorico way, but I just had too many years in speedy entry with those keys under my right hand. Easier to reprogram the keys than my muscle memory. 
Sherri.. I feel your pain.
Coming from Finale after 20 years, I’ve found Dorico harder to learn. I can see that Dorico is a more modern and complete implementation of notation software—with better defaults, more consistent global settings, and a workflow that ultimately produces more predictable results. But the price of that is a much steeper learning curve.
For me the challenge is ‘discoverability’. In Finale, I could always stumble onto the function I needed —you could hunt around and usually figure out how to input, edit, or tweak. I was self taught. I didn’t take a lot of video courses or read the manual. In Dorico, actions are not nearly as ‘discoverable’. You have to already know where an option lives, or go look it up. Even after a year, I still keep an AI assistant open just to ask, “How do I do this in Dorico?”
Maybe it’s because I’m a recreational user rather than using it every day. Maybe it’s just age and memory. But I do think the Dorico learning curve can be especially tough for converting users for this reason. The concept of discoverability is just something that makes modern software usable - and I find Dorico can feel opaque.
This is just one person’s experience. I want to love Dorico—it really does feel like the superior product—but I’m still working on finding peace with it.
Hi John, and thank you for your message. During music grad school in the 1990s, Finale was what I was weaned on, probably because it was the one at the time. (Then again, I also remember blue screen email list servs. 
) I also remember in the early 2000s when Sibelius came on the market, and I found them more user-friendly than Finale, but also more expensive. As you’ve mentioned, Dorico does require a much steeper learning curve. At the risk of sounding xenophobic, I think that much of my frustration is being lost in translation. Steinberg is a German company, and Dorico is Steinberg’s software. So I think a large part of my frustration is the German-to-English Help tutorial translation, which is very technical and complex. (Now I better appreciate how people from other languages feel trying to translate my native English!)
I’ve arranged and composed music for different levels of performance for over 30 years. So when Finale closed down and steered many of us to Dorico, the discounted rate seemed a good deal at first. Now I feel stuck with technically difficult software, and an extremely technical Help tutorial which will take me up to an hour to try and relearn each function. And when I transfer my scores from Finale to Dorico via .mxl, I’ll spend up to 2 hours trying to fix the score’s appearance - also because of the very difficult tutorial. Perhaps Steinberg could leave Mt. Olympus where the major jazz and classical composers live, and create a more user-friendly tutorial for a mere mortal like me , who at times would just want to whip out a five-staff composition for my elementary Orff students.
To those of you who have reached out with your advice and help links, thank you. I consider myself a technologically literate person; so for me to fuss about software means I’ve tried - and I can’t be the only one in distress. Nonetheless, I will go to the links you’ve suggested. I’m stuck with Dorico now; so I’ll have to deal with it.
The development team and documentation lead are British and London-based. You can look up the history of Dorico, but the whole thing started when Avid laid off the Sibelius team and Steinberg snapped them up and said start over and do what you would have done had you known then what you know now.
Hello TonH. Bless your heart! I’m a busy music educator, composer and arranger. All of these were created in Finale. So to “…start on Dorico with something that has not to be done,” or “at least, not to be done on a deadline” isn’t an option. Eventually, Finale will no longer work, So, I’m trying to convert my Finale files to .mxl so that I may convert them to Dorico. But instead of being able to just make minor adjustments to my Orff composition within Dorico, Dorico stretches my fine-bar piece into three bars on one page and two on the next. I’m not trying to not “use Dorico the way in was intended”. All I want from any music software is to keep composing and arranging music. What could be more simple than five Orff instruments on an 8-measure score?
Can you upload one or two of your XML files here? Someone may be able to give you some tips on a smoother transition to Dorico.
Here’s one.
Winter Song.mxl (20.8 KB)
Hi Sherri, I’m sorry your struggling.
I’m wondering if it’s down to your style of thinking being different from that embodied in Dorico. People do have very different ways of thinking about things and that’s completely expected and normal.
Dorico is very ‘design concept’ based - in other words, the way it works is thought through so that a concept is applied the same way throughout the design.
This means it’s often necessary when learning to step back from the immediate task and take time to understand the overall design ideas. That doesn’t suit everybody by any means. Some people experience that as ‘unintuitive’.
I think your best bet is to keep asking questions here, post some examples as @asherber suggests, and let people help you climb the mountain.
That one is just two measures long, and it looks like this when I open it:
Does it look different for you in Finale?
Sherri, please give Dorico a chance. As there are countless notation conventions there are many ways to enter music and you can not expect that all music notation software works the same. If you’re willing to embrace Dorico’s philosophy (widely more keyboard-based than mouse-based) and be patient – yes, the learning curve is steep – you will certainly appreciate the benefit. By the way “doing it as in Finale” fights the framework and causes still more frustration.
I’m older than you and worked also profesionally more than 30 years using Finale before having switched to Dorico. It has some minor drawbacks (like Finale’s major ones) but I never want to look back.
Don’t forget to export all your work to PDF too. That way the most important part, your intellectual work, is always saved, and you have something to compare with if a future XML import looks odd
Others have far more experience than me converting old files, so I refrain from giving tips which might send you in the wrong direction
Just in case you are not aware (or to let others know coming to this thread), the Jump bar user manual link is designed to help with this.
Ref: “Learning Dorico for Finale Refugees” group
Steinberg Dorico (YouTube) introduces the Jump bar in Dorico v4
Dorico YouTube workflow improvements (v6)
