I’ve searched the forum and have found how to change the music size from a system break which I have to manually enter. How can I change the music size from the beginning of the score? I can’t introduce a system break anywhere but on a barline, so I can’t see how to change the music from the first measure since there isn’t a barline there.
Help. Thanks!
This is something you choose in Layout options (cmd-shift-L), page setup, space size.
You can attach a system break to any note in the score, including the first one.
Actually, bar lines are also “attached to the first note of the bar” in some sense - so you weren’t really “attaching a system break to a bar llne” even when you selected the barline.
Also, if you want to split a bar between two staves, just create a system break in the middle of the bar - you don’t have to mess about creating irregular length bars with invisible bar lines, as in some other notation programs.
Marc, Thanks – I see it now, but to find it we have to be in “Setup” mode. But I consider things such as staff size to be part of the engraving process so I was trying to find it in the “Engrave” mode. These “modes” may be the undoing of me!
Thanks, Rob for pointing out that system breaks can be assigned to notes (any note) and not just to barlines. There’s just so much of this program to discover!
One thing I have to force myself to do more of is to simply think outside the “this is the screen I’m working on” mind-set and realize that there are 4 other modes besides whichever one I’m currently working in. I need to try the other modes if I can’t find something in the mode I’m working in.
That’s also where a very nice complete manual (which I’m sure is coming eventually) will be helpful. Right now the help files told me nothing and I’d be totally lost without this forum.
Thanks, Marc and Rob!
You’re welcome. And though the layout options button is in Setup mode, you can access it through the keyboard binding I gave you in write mode (cmd-shift-L for mac or ctl-shift-L for PC) which is brilliant !
[Edit] For what it’s worth, if you have not read that anywhere, let me tell you that you can also access Notation options from any mode with cmd-shift-N and Engraving options with cmd-shift-E !
Thanks for those other two options shortcuts. I am learning that much can be done using those types of shortcuts, but finding what they are and then remembering them takes time. I’m not working the rest of this week – perhaps I’ll spend a lot of time typing up my own list of these types of shortcuts and the other keyboard bindings that are most useful for me as I learn Dorico better.
Thanks again for sharing what you’ve obviously spent time digging into and learning!
Here is a spreadsheet of commands I have typed up for my own use, just in case you find it a helpful starting point. The spreadsheet format means you can resort in any way useful to you. Feel free to adapt it as you wish.
doricoKeyCommands161119.zip (7.53 KB)