Custom master pages - some basic questions

Dorico
1

Sorry to bother folks with such basic questions, but - after many months - I’m
still not sure if I understand how to create, save, and use custom master pages and master page sets. (I’m also unfortunately limited to using Dorico 3.5 --I’m on a Windows 7 machine).

A few questions:

  • Is it true that any changes made to custom master pages that are “based on” “First” or “Default” master pages are automatically applied to the “First” or “Default” master pages? If so, what’s the point of creating a ‘custom’ master page, when all one is really doing is changing the “First” or “Default” page upon which it’s based? Wouldn’t “editing” that “First” or “Default” page do the same?

  • How can one base a custom master page on a First or Default master page without thereby also changing the original First or Default master page?

  • How does one save a custom master page — and then import it into another project?

  • Where are custom master pages stored (in Windows)?

  • I’ve only randomly found some Dorico videos that deal with aspects of master pages, but no collection of videos that covers everything in an orderly way. Does such an online collection exist?

Thanks, in advance, for any tips!

2

One can create a custom Page Template (as these are now called) and delete or replace fields to customize the page. For example, I changed the First page template by adding page numbers. I then created a Custom First page template with the page numbers removed. That way, when I print a collection, I can assign the page-numberless template to the very first page and have the First page template (now with page number) automatically inserted each time a new flow begins.

By removing the field(s) one wants to change and replacing them rather than altering the original (copied) fields. I usually write down the dimensions for the field(s) I wish to change that appear in Properties to help me reproduce the dimensions in the replacement field(s).

I do not know whether this capability had appeared in Dorico Pro 3.5. In versions 4 & 5, I know that there is a panel at the bottom of the page template column (on the right) that deals with template Sets. One can save a score or part Set (best to give it a new name) and then load it into another project. There is even a hack that will allow one to replace the default set with a set one has customized. But that’s not for the faint-of-heart.

Not sure, but custom Sets can be saved where one prefers.

Not sure such a single video resource does exist, since these templates (like their name) have evolved over several versions. But I know @John_at_Steinberg has done at least one Discover Dorico video on them.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Dorico+page+templates

I hope these answers will help. By all means ask more questions if something confuses you.

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3

Only the contents of frames that are shared between them. If you resize the music frame on a custom master page that was “based on” the Default master page, the original Default won’t be affected. (e.g. this is helpful for cases pages that don’t have as many systems, but on which you still want to show the same running header and page numbers as normal.)

However, if you change the tokens in a text frame that the two templates share, that affects both. You have to delete and re-input frames to break the link. Ultimately, you may decide it’s simpler to start again from scratch, depending on the scope of the changes you want to make.

Here’s a good playlist:

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Many thanks, @Derrek! I’m sorry it has taken this long for me to return to this post!

I may take you up on your kind offer, Derrek! :smile:

5

Thanks, Lillie – I hope you won’t mind if I end up asking a lot of follow-up questions!

I opened a new, blank project (for piano only), and created a “new master page” (v.3.5), “based on” the “First” master page, and called that new master page “classical approach”.

For page 1, I switched the master page to “classical approach”, added 100 bars to it, and – for starters – increased the size of the music frame’s right margin. As you described, this did not affect the First master page.

As the Flow Title text frame is tied to the margins of the music frame – and I wanted to make the Flow Title span the entire width of the page – I deleted “classical approach’s” Flow Title text frame (which was linked to “First” master page), and tried to create a new one.

In “Project Info”, I had given Flow 1 the name “Without augmented 6 chord”. When I created the new text frame beside the music frame, and entered the token for Flow number and Flow Title ( {@flowNumber@}. {@flowTitle@} ), it showed the Project Info name for the Flow:

custom master pages 1
custom master pages 1865×401 15.6 KB

But when I tried to place the Flow Number and Title tokens in a different text frame – one that I created above the music frame (after deleting the given text frames for lyricist and composer, to make space for it), only the Flow Number – not the Flow Title – appeared:

custom master pages 2
custom master pages 2835×306 16.5 KB

Can you explain why the first text frame was linked to the Project Info, while the second text frame wasn’t, please?

Along similar lines: Is it possible to create a “new Flow Heading” to take the place of the Default Flow Heading, and assign it to appear on some custom pages and not others?

Thanks, in advance, for your help.

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Before one starts the music (frame), there is no designated Flow. One could use {@FlowTitle1@} to refer specifically to that Title, but that Page Template would continue to refer to that specific Flow Title whenever you used that template. (I imagine the Flow Number defaults to 1 in the absence of other information.)

Once one is within a music frame, as you see, the flow title appears in full.

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Thanks, Derrek!

What seems strange is that the flow title can appear to the right of the music frame – i.e., outside of it – but not above it.

The more I explore, the stranger things become: I see that options that I choose in Layout Options – e.g., whether Flow headings should appear or not – do not seem to apply to custom pages. Is this correct?

Thanks again!

8

Once you’ve overridden a page (such that it appears with a red flash in the Pages panel in Engrave mode), it will no longer receive any automatic changes, whether that comes from editing the page template that the overridden page used before you overrode it, or changing settings for flow headings, or indeed anything else.

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This makes sense – thank-you – but does this mean that custom pages one creates are, by definition, overriden?

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If you create the custom page by editing things directly in Engrave mode on the actual pages of your layout, yes, they are always by definition overridden.

If, on the other hand, you create custom page templates and then apply those page templates to individual pages of your layout, provided you don’t make any further manual edits to those pages in Engrave mode, those pages are not overridden.

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11

I just imitated your description, Derrek, and see that the added page number is automatically copied from L to R, which – without doing anything else – looks like this:

First page with page numbers, 1
First page with page numbers, 11182×142 8.88 KB

In order to have the Right page’s page number show up at the far right of its page, I needed to make the page number text frame the entire width of the page (and lower other frames, to make room for it). That resulted in this:

First page with page numbers, 2
First page with page numbers, 21179×249 10.4 KB

Is this more or less what you did, as well?

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Thanks, Daniel - I understand now.

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I did smaller, separate page-number fields on the two facing pages.

I also change the project-title field in all my page templates to give it a left and right margin indented 10ms to make choosing fields on the left and right margin easier.

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Thanks, Derrek!

15

Thanks, Derrek – I’m about to take you up on this :wink:

Yes, Pro 3.5 does have that Master Page Sets panel at the bottom. I just watched Anthony Hughes’ video on master page sets (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6jw44a05Ro), but rather than show how to save a custom master page as part of a master page set (and then “exporting” it, I presume?), it shows how to create a new set, within which one can then alter First and/or Default master pages as one wishes.

Is there a way to save a custom master page that one has just created? Would one do so by creating a new set that is based on the original set, renaming it, and then exporting it?

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Yes, export the master pages set the new master page is a part of.
If you want to only export this one master page, make sure it’s the only one in the master page set.
(Using old terminology here for sake of communication, for newer versions replace „master page“ with „page template“)

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Thanks very much, klafkid!

I don’t know if that’s possible in Dorico Pro 3.5 – it seems one must (as you say) export the master page set within which the custom master page exists (which, in this case, is the default Dorico “First” and “Default” pages). Logically, it would seem that the only way to save the custom master page so that it is the only master page in the master page set would be to delete the “First” and “Default” master pages from the set – which might be impossible to do.

A related question, if you have a moment: although I gave a new name to the master page set (that contains my custom master page), and then exported and saved it where I wanted it to be saved in my computer, when I later imported it into a new project, it came into the project as simply “Default Full Score (Imported)”, rather than with the name by which I saved it. Is this normal, or does it indicate an error on my part?

Thanks again for your help! :smile:

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I think you can delete all master pages in a master page set except for the “standard” one. Just hit the small trash bin in the bottom right corner.

Bildschirmfoto 2024-02-04 um 17.57.17
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For me it imports with the name I have given to the master page set. But I am usingh Dorico 5, so this might’ve been an unsolved issue as of 3.5. I do not have 3.5 anymore installed to check if that’s the case, sorry.

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@Lillie_Harris

Lillie, would you happen to know how this should work in v.3.5? Should the imported, specifically-named custom master page set appear in the new project with the name I have given it, or as the Dorico-named “Default Full Score (Imported)”?

As well, if I export my custom master page within a master page set that includes the original Dorico “First” and “Default” master pages, and then import that new master page set in a later project, I end up with two identical sets of “First” and “Default” master pages (i.e., the new project’s Dorico “First” and “Default” along with the “First” and “Default” within which I saved my custom master page, in order to save it.) It seems as tho’ there may be a way to import custom master pages on their own in later versions of Dorico Pro, but is there any way around this in Dorico Pro 3.5?

Thanks, in advance, for your assistance.

20

One can name a set by changing the file name under which it is saved. One can also rename a set in the right panel of Engrave mode.

nameSets
nameSets252×689 11.6 KB

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