Can’t delete is important when I want to create a new project from the basis of an existing one. Can’t copy is important when I want to copy chord symbols from one part of a song to another.
If the fundamental problem is that you can’t select chord symbols, then you should do so by either clicking one and selecting more (Cmd/Ctrl-Shift-A) once for that bar, twice for that system or thrice for the whole flow, or by marquee selecting them, or by using the System Track (and then filtering if it’s just the chord symbols you want).
It’s intentional that you can’t include chord symbols within a regular staff (or multi-staff) selection - this behaviour was changed as it was previously extremely easy to inadvertently replace/delete chord symbols globally with no real warning.
I’m afraid that doesn’t all work for me. First (a minor objection) with Cmd/Ctrl-Shift-A I get different behavior: once selects chord symbols of the section, twice for the whole flow. But more important, when I select the bars in the System Track I find no way to select the chord symbols.
Select More behaviour depends on whether you’re in Page View or Galley View.
If you click the system track above the first bar and then shift click the system above the last bar, then click the little square just to the right, are the chord symbols not selected along with everything else?
Hej there and excuse my language.
I have now been sitting for an hour, trying to figure out how the H… I can copy the chord symbols I’ve written in a part/player/instrument/whatever to another part/player/instrument/whatever.
I’ve tried to use the ctrl-A, then filter chord symbols and then tried to copy/paste.
Nothing happens when I do that. NOTHING!
This little thing is something that just works in the other program.
The problems with this little funtionality is a disqualifying item for me.
I am responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of our notation software at one of the music schools I work in and I also come with recommendations to whitch programs we should try out. And if you can’t get an easy thing like copy and paste of chords to work, why should I even consider switching to your software?
Hi Carsten.
Don’t get nervous. I think you’ve done the right thing : write here when you don’t get the result you’re waiting for.
Dorico is quite different to other programs in many fields, and chords is surely one of them. You cannot select chords easily any longer (it was possible in previous versions of the program, but could lead to chords deleted by the user without wanting that…) but there is one procedure that does work. If what you need is to select the chords, use the system track (the grey thing that appears above the top staff). If it’s not there, press alt-T (it’s a toggle). Select the bunch of bars where the chords are, and then you can filter them.
If you want to copy them to another instrument on the same bars, this is not the procedure in Dorico. Chords belong to bar spans, not to instruments. What you can do is make them appear on different instruments. For instance, you want them above a melodic instrument or a singer? Go to setup mode, cmd-click the player and in the context menu, you can change how you want the chords to appear. If you select “show chords for all instruments (that this player is holding)” you’ll notice how they appear on this instrument, and you didn’t have to select, copy anything…
Please tell me if that helps, or be a little more specific about what you are trying to achieve 
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Basically speaking, chord symbols are a global track that any player’s staves can refer to. You can’t copy and paste them from one instrument to another instrument, because all you’d be doing would be replacing the global chord symbols with the same global chord symbols!
This is quite different to the way that some other notation programs handle chords, but it does make it substantially harder for the user to inadvertently create inconsistencies between chord symbols in different staves or parts (though if you want that then you can input Local Chord Symbols).
By default, “rhythm section” instruments always show chord symbols. If you want, e.g a Violin to show chord symbols, you should go to Setup mode, right-click on the Violin Player (left panel) and choose Chord Symbols > Show for all Instruments. Note that this menu is specific to each player; you’ll need to right-click on each player for which you want chord symbols.
Pro tip: rather than going through the Setup menus, you can stay in Write mode, select something on the Violin stave, type Shift-Q and type in a chord. When you hit Enter, Dorico will recognise that you now want that instrument to show chord symbols, and will alter the Setup mode settings for you.
There are also options in there to only display chord symbols in slash regions and bar repeat regions.
If you only want to show chord symbols for specific sections of the music, you can do that on a per-stave basis using the Write menu > Chord Region.
5 Likes
Dear Leo,
Thanks for the pro tip, that is something I did not know. I hope Carsten has got his score where he wanted!
problem copying chord symbol from one project to another:
in project1 select all, copy and then paste in project2, chord symbols are’n visible;
in project2 if I try to input a new chord symbol I found the copied one in (it exists but invisible in score)
If chord symbols aren’t set to show on any instrument in project 2, copying and pasting chord symbols in won’t automatically turn on the setting to show them (though maybe it should).
Adding a new chord symbol is a quick way of turning on chord symbols for a particular instrument, which you would normally do by going to Setup mode, right-clicking on the relevant player in the left panel > Chord Symbols > whatever you want.