I have a woodwind quintet that is frustrating me. I imported it as a MIDI file from Cakewalk by Bandlab. It set up with the instruments out of order (i.e., Bassoon above French Horn) and with the bracket out of whack, so I had to fix those before I could continue. Now, at the end of the project, I’m trying to format the full score in page mode, and I can’t for the life of me get Dorico to display abbreviated staff labels after the first system. I either get Full staff labels or None - nothing in between. I’ve tried every trick I can think of, find, read about, you name it. I even reset the Players’ instrument names to the Defaults. No joy. What can I do to rectify this situation, if anything? Thanks for your help!
How are the options set on the Staves and Systems page of Layout Options?
That certainly looks OK. Are you able to attach the project itself so we can take a look and see why the apparently correct settings aren’t producing the expected results?
When doing these kinds of imports, you can save a lot of headache by doing a Change Instrument so that each Player is using a default Dorico defined instrument. You most likely have no short name defined.
If none of that works, post the project for further assistance.
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Well, that got me the abbreviated names - thanks! - but it killed my score’s brackets. I had it set up as a Small Ensemble, with a simple bracket encompassing the entire 5-item project, but that bracket disappeared when I changed the instruments, and now I can’t get it back. I’m attaching a ZIP file of the project as a plea for help. 
LJproject20230919.zip (2.1 MB)
You have a Bracket change which is causing this. Not sure what it was for, but if you delete it (in Write or Engrave mode), the bracket will appear. Make sure you have signposts turned on so you see the brown bracket change signpost.
Bingo! That solved it. Thank you very much!
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