Creating flow headings

I find it frustrating that, when creating new flow headings based on existing ones, frames remain linked, and there is no way to break that link other than by deleting and reentering the frames. In my current large project different movements have varying amounts of titling which require an array of flow headings, and I don’t want to use tokens because I need text formatting options applied to individual titles. Sometimes a movement simply requires a single title and I just want to duplicate a previous flow heading and type in the new movement title, but if I do that it replaces all the unavoidably linked flow headings with the new title. Surely the point of creating things ‘based on’ other things is that you use the existing things as templates and then just make the necessary changes. Please can we therefore have the option for flow headings to be unlinked. For the moment, unless I have missed something, each time I create a new flow heading I have to reenter the necessary frames and carefully copy the frame measurements to ensure they are all consistent, which has proved very laborious.

I’d also like to take the opportunity to add to the few requesting that flow headings are tied to flows, and not pages, which rather seems to go against their intended nature. For most people I would have thought entering flow headings is part of the inputting procedure, not an ‘engraving’ procedure. For now I add comments at the inputting stage to remind myself to place the flow heading changes on the correct page once I get to the layout stage. And of course, should one later on be forced to change the layout, it’s another thing to check.

I would certainly like to see a “Duplicate Unlinked” type of command for Master Pages, but until then whenever I need an altered Master Page or Flow Heading arrangement, I create it as a custom Master Page or Master Flow Heading. I usually create them in a separate Dorico Project that I use to create and store Master Page Sets so I can export them from the separate project and load them into any new project in one fell swoop (well two fell swoops, actually: one for Score MP’s and one for parts MP’s).

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Thanks for the feedback, Jeremy. We’ll look into adding the capability to have unlinked frames in new flow headings.

Many thanks Daniel, as ever.