Becoming more and more dejected

Hello - I sure never meant to make Finale sound like the be all end all, or to make Dorico the bad guy at all. Finale drove my nuts for sure - I had a handful of friends that were my tech support gurus over all the years that I’m sure got tired of hearing from me. (I have had similar learning issues with Logic Pro too.) I remember when I first started trying to learn Finale, I said "I could write this out with my non-dominant hand faster! My frustration is more about my own stuff. Worrying/hoping I have the patience and ability to learn quick enough to be productive and accomplish the things I need to. I have no doubts that Dorico is designed better and ultimately will be easier and more versatile. I just had one of those days when I posted this initially - and venting and then hearing from so many supporters here was very helpful. And as I’ve said many times, the help here is so great - as well as the video tutorials. Thanks for listening.

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Very popular thread.

I stopped banging my head after 3 months.

Dorico has SOOOOO MANY MACRO options to find out and learn.

But once I’ve passed this stage, I’m so happy to change fonts in 1 click, to macro modify chords options. I feel more confident about notation consistence, and general consistence of my scores.

Note entry is now faster for me than it used to be on Finale (especially when melody is heavily syncopated).

Hang on

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@bobwalton60 hey Bob, I hope I worded the previous post (and using the :slight_smile: at the end) with a little humor, at least in my mind—I wasn’t being serious. I was not at all implying that I thought you were sounding like it was the be all and end all (I hope that is not the impression you felt, if so, sorry).

Being here at the forum before the Finale thing and then reading most of the posts from Finale users who were making comparisons about how easy it was to do something compared to Dorico’s seeming obfuscations …

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Hey Arco - That’s very thoughtful, thank you. I’m also new to forums believe it or not – having struggled through Finale and Logic Pro mostly on my own and by annoying a handful of friends with questions! So, I was just wanting to make sure I wasn’t coming off in a way I didn’t intend. A lot of it for me stems from feeling like I shouldn’t have to ask for help with so many things, and not wanting to be a pest. But I’m getting over that feeling and just starting to ask if I don’t find an answer within 30 min! There have been so many helpful ideas and answers already and that’s comforting. Thanks again.

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I don’t wish to jump on the bandwagon, but just want to add that I have lots of difficulties too doing things in Dorico that were second nature in another program.
One I haven’t solved yet - and the answer is probably something utterly stupid and simple that I have not seen - is in a major work, of seven movements (flows) that I am completing that, for some unfathomable reason, has changed the barline joins on the last flow.
Despite me not (knowingly) changing any engraving options, for the life of me I cannot get the last movement to have the barline joins I want! I follow the procedure I have always done to ‘change’ the spurious joins Dorico has decided I need but, every time, whenever I switch back to Write mode, the barline joins revert to some setting that I am unable to change.
I have spent, it seems, hours trying to impose my will on the brute - to no avail.
I have just given up for now - it does not affect the playback, and I have wasted too much time already. Many of the problems I struggle with are of a similar formatting nature.
I, too, am ageing and not as receptive or retentive as I was - I put it down to that! Other wise, I love Dorico and its team.

Wayyyyy beyond my pay grade! Being new to forums too - I feel like I can hear someone who knows more suggest that you start a new thread for this issue. I get you’ll get more responses that way? But I also am always conscious of not starting duplicate threads with the same issue…GOOD LUCK!

In my case , moving from Finale a few years ago, Steinberg support and this forum have been invaluable in resolving questions and problems. Many things, for me, that were repeated and learned patterns in Finale are implemented in a more intuitive way in Dorico, I have found. Never give up. Never surrender. You WILL get it.

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If you can’t figure this out, the most direct route to an answer is to share the project file itself.

You can create a duplicate version of the file if you like, from which you can delete and cut-down most of the musical material (to reduce the file size and to reduce how much you share) so long as what remains still demonstrates the issue.

Feel free to start a new thread for this question.

As a starting hint: check for existing bracket and barline change signposts (they’re the brown ones).

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By Grabthar’s hammer, you WILL get a grip on Dorico!

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Damn… beat me to it.

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You can fix this without going into the Settings or Options.
Go to Engrave Mode, select the end of a barline and just drag it up or down.
Instead of dragging you can also use Alt+Up/Down Arrow keys.

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The one certainty in life?..Change…change is inevitable.

Stick with Dorico. It’s the best of all notation programs rolled into one package.

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I feel your pain. I was very fast and efficient with Finale too, and Dorico has slowed me down significantly. But it’s getting better. Usually takes me an hour or less to do a lead sheet w/ lyrics and chords. Things that have got my speed up are learning keyboard strokes and popover commands for the common tasks.

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Bob, I feel your frustration. I purchased Dorico last August, and it took me until this month to be able to do all my work in it. I use it mainly to create practice tracks for my church choir, but I also create organ scores for Hauptwerk to play, for use in church services. Finally yesterday I found something I really like about Dorico: I can enter all the notes of a given duration into all measures in one pass, then enter the notes of a different duration, and so on. Compared to Finale, in which I must finish a measure at a time, this really speeds up note entry. Hang in there, and I wish you much success.

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Great idea! I’m trying it now…

Best, not yet, but maybe soon (Dorico 6 or 7?).
In any case, I’ve noticed that the complaints often point to poor use of the software. With Dorico, you have to let it do its job as long as you enter the music; the result may not be immediately beautiful. That’s when you switch to Engraver mode (but not before) to do the clockwork that Dorico allows.
Many people try to make changes to the page layout while the text is being entered, which is a mistake; you need to be patient and not try to set the time until all the cogs in the movement are assembled.

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I feel your pain. I started With Finale in ~1987. Although I have spent a lot of time (about 10 hours) on Dorico pro 5, it has been very painful. My work load is very low. I keep going back to Finale 27 over and over again I am over 70.
I have all but given up on Dorico.I am gonna keep Finale for my work and keep playing with Dorico when I want to play and work in Finale when I have to work.

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Hi Steve - Well you have me beat by about ten years on both ends. I started in Finale in 98, and I’m halfway through 60! After my venting – and all the encouragement and help here, I have found that my lead sheet process (which feels like silly baby steps…) has gotten better. Some elements and menus are starting to stick a little. But I too, will probably be keeping Finale around…and hoping that if I update my OS on my Mac, I won’t lose the option. Like others have told me - I would encourage you to just keep trying baby step things. But I wish I had my Finale 98 brain!! Good luck and vent here – people have been so gracious.

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FWIW, my experience, after using Dorico now for several years, is that note input is much better in Finale than in Dorico. But the final output shines in Dorico compared to Finale. It just looks so much better and so much more professional out of the box. And one rarely gets nonsense like the last bar in this screenshot in Dorico, that is so frequent in Finale:

So for me, if I’m seriously transcribing a piece, I would revert to Finale for the initial note input, export the XML, and import into Dorico for editing and finishing.

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I agree with you about editing and finishing in Dorico, but that particular Finale issue is caused by not having these Update Layout and Music Spacing settings checked:

I’m going to disagree about input as being able to extend the cursor through multiple staves is way better in Dorico, and things like setting Notation Options so I can just enter a half on the & of 2 and have it automatically input an eighth tied to a dotted quarter, makes input in Dorico much faster than it ever was in Finale. (And I basically only use pitch-first input.)

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