Yes, this is to be expected.
Thanks, I wasn’t aware of this, Daniel. So first import the flow, then start on the page layout, got it 
As someone who is moving old Sibelius Files to Dorico for republishing, I’d like to add in an extra request for the ability to import/export styles. In my situation, I have several converted over, and then I find that I want to tweak some options based upon something that comes up - I’m now faced with going into each file to adjust the same options over and over again. Thanks!
Apologies if I’m stating the obvious, but aren’t you importing XML into an existing project? If so, you shouldn’t need to change the settings every time. Save a blank file the way you like it, set to read-only, and import.
Are you considering giving the ability to save to house styles instead of defaults? It would be pretty handy to have the possibility to have a handful of ‘defaults’ based on what you choose.
If I’m doing scores for concert I would like the font and placement in certain ways and I’ll wan’t it a different way for recording or for publication.
bryla, the development team have previously confirmed that plans for this functionality are on the roadmap. Presumably other priorities are higher up the list currently.
Okay. That’s good to hear. Thank you 
Taking into consideration the clamoring there has been on the forum the last few years and the number of high-level discussions they have had with professional engravers and music publishers, I actually wouldn’t be surprised if this landed sooner than later. There have been many “read between the lines” moments where they have admitted to showing build previews to publishing houses to drum up excitement and solicit feedback. Couple to this the fact that Dorico is starting to enjoy the limelight with some heavy hitters in the professional music industry, I imagine they would get a lot of mileage out of this feature.
Whatever happens, I hope they allow at least two options: 1-import house style and 2-apply house style. I think these options should be distinct. It would be nice to allow you to import multiple styles and then retroactively apply them to any project independent of the styles in your library.
The difference is what happens after I’ve created all of the Dorico files and then decide to make a change to the look and feel for the set. Then I have to go back and edit all of the existing Dorico files. The same would be for anybody who was creating Dorico files from scratch and then decided to change the look and feel of a set of them.
Again, in this case you would use “import flow” to bring the old project into your “master” file.
I’m not saying the current functionality is perfect… I also am looking forward to templates in the future. But it is certainly faster to achieve than starting from scratch.
That proved useful today. Thanks.
Is there still no way to import a house style? Currently I’m just copying my last project and changing instrumentation to whatever the new one is, but I’d like to be able to just start from scratch with a template that has all my preferences concerning fonts, layouts, other things like microtonality and height of beams, thickness of staves etc.
If not now, any idea of when, or a reason for never?
Thanks!
You can now import master page sets, which is a new feature. And the engraving options can be saved as default for all future new projects. That’s pretty close to what you’re asking for.
Excellent, thanks Dan.
As the editor of several catalogs each with its own particular “house style”, it is extremely important for me to be able to open older files through MusicXML and be able to import a “house style” so that I don’t have to go thgough the laborious process of changing fonts and layouts each time I want to update a piece. Will there ever be this option in Dorico?
Welcome to the forum, Subitodave. Yes, it’s certainly planned for the future, but in the meantime you should find that importing the music into a project file that contains all your preferred settings works absolutely fine. It is true that subsequently updating the settings in that file for a revision following first publication is more labour-intensive because there’s no good way to repeat this process in such a way that all your detailed editing and layout work will be retained.
May I kindly request the Dorico team to add official instructions to the manual on how to create and use a house style? I’ve searched all over the manual and read through this thread, but we really need clear instructions.
This is extremely easy and intuitive even in MuseScore, yet in Dorico it seems arduous and needlessly complicated. Like many users, I merely want my scores to share a consistent look. Surely this is among the most frequent requests.
In short, once we have a score whose layout we wish to reuse, how can we save that as a template and use it for new or existing scores? Thanks in advance to the Dorico team for any official instructions.
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When you have the project set up as you want it, save it as a new file, and call it “Template” or whatever you want.
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In Project Info (Cmd-I), delete all entries
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In Write mode, Select All and press delete
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Delete all bars by Shift-B, -200 (or some high number)
That’s it. Save and close. Then set that file to be read-only, which will prevent Dorico from overwriting it in the future.
All my scores, some 3,000 or so, have the same consistent look, because I haven’t started a project from “New” in more than two years. I always begin with an existing blank file I’ve created. Works great.
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To follow on from what Dan’s just said: It’s worth hanging onto a single flow in each of your template files, in order to have an effective template for the purposes of Notation Options. It’s safest to open the template file, store the flow’s Notation Options as default, delete the existing flow and create a new one (which will take on the Notation Options you just stored as default).
Thanks, Dan and Leo. This is certainly helpful.
I still can’t seem to get my head around “Master Pages,” “Master Page Sets,” “Master Page Overrides” and the like. None of it is remotely intuitive. I’m sure this has all been discussed at length, but it still comes as a surprise that neither “Master Pages” nor “Master Page Sets” are actually “master” pages in that they’re strangely limited to a single score. It would seem that “master pages” ought to be roughly equivalent to a house style that one could apply to new scores, but apparently that’s not the case.