Changing the padding in music frames individually

Thank you for the illustration. What I would like to see as a future option for Flow Header master “pages” would be a flow heading that would expand (downward) based on the material inside it. That would make it possible to include different (vertical) length cue text (eventually rich text formatted) from a Project Info field without adding wasted space at the bottom of the frame or having text cut off by a frame that is too short. I have no illusions about the programming challenge that such dynamic space-allotment would involve.

I’ll wait to see what Lillie suggests, since she knows the in’s and out’s of the program far better than I. Meanwhile I’ll poke around to see what I can come up with (if anything more than has already been suggested).

I’m going to outline some key facts about how things in this area work below in the plainest, cleanest terms I can think of. I think I have already said most of this in previous responses, but they quite possibly got confused in all the back and forth.

  • Flow headings get put inside music frames. Therefore, the highest possible position on a page that a flow heading can exist at, is the position of the top edge of the music frame on that page.

  • When a flow starts at the top of a page, its flow heading gets put at the very top of the music frame. Therefore, in that circumstance, only the flow heading bottom margin is used.

  • When a flow starts midway down a page, it’s automatically positioned above the start of the flow, with both flow heading margins used. The top flow heading margin sets the distance between the flow heading and the last system of the preceding flow; the bottom flow heading margin sets the distance between the flow heading and the first system in the next flow, i.e. the flow the heading “describes”.

  • If you want the flow heading on pages using the First master page to appear higher on the page (closer to the project title) but have a larger gap between the flow heading and the first system of the flow, then do the following: a) edit your First master page so the music frame’s top edge is higher on the page (yes, you may want/need to move/shorten the existing text frames on the First master page); b) increase the flow heading bottom margin, either in Layout Options if you want this globally in the layout, or by assigning a flow heading change just to page 1 in the layout and setting the flow bottom margin there. The benefit of doing this in Layout Options is not only that it affects all flow headings in the layout, but also you can keep the dialog open, change the value, click Apply, check the result, then tweak the value if necessary until you reach the value you like whilst keeping the dialog open.

  • Moving the frames of a flow heading on an individual page creates a page override, same as moving any frame on one page. There are times when this is either necessary or the easiest way, which is fine so long as you’re doing it knowingly and understand the implications.

So, where does one go to make different edits?

  • To change the maximum highest position a flow heading can appear at on pages: edit the corresponding master page, move music frame top edge. Remember this affects all pages using the master page, not just ones with flow headings.

  • To change what content is shown inside a flow heading: edit the corresponding flow heading

  • To change the gaps above/below flow headings: Layout Options or flow heading changes

Finally, you’re not obliged to use flow headings, of course, if you find that you prefer either to add text frames manually or design master pages that include the relevant text frames/tokens to display flow headings. The automatic flow headings feature in Dorico is very sophisticated and suitably fluid, but it’s not the only way of working.

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Sorry, but this still doesn’t make sense. I’m trying to create a bigger margin between flow headings and the first system for a book of piano pieces. The desired effect is this (where I had to move the systems manually.) For every flow, I want to put some text and an image at the beginning.


I went in an modified the margins of the first page template like this:

All other flows (19 of them) look like this, e.g., the first system is NOT moving down.

WHAT am I doing wrong?!

Edit the flow headings template? You can decide how tall it is, and probably add a different picture to each new template… Then it’s just a matter of right clicking the miniature, add a flow headings change (you can even set a shortcut for that) and there you go. Hope it helps.

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Interesting idea, Marc. I’ll give it a shot. Thanks!