Delete page without dostroy anything

Hello, I have a problem with deleting blank page.
I’ve watched the tutorial „How to Work with Pages” and found that topics:
Delete pages - Dorico - Steinberg Forums
Deleting empty pages - Dorico - Steinberg Forums

but still I am not sure how to solve my problem.

I am working on big orchestral score. I created title page, than front matter pages, but then I realised, that I have one front matter page too much and it’s blank.
In my score I have many pages with overrides. Many frames and manual staff spacings, so how can I be sure, that if I delete the page, everything else will stay on it’s position? I need to send a score to the conductor very soon and almost everything is done, except this blank page.
If I am trying to remove the overrides from this page, or manually move the page to the end of the layout, some details of my score are destroing.
My idea is to do like Daniel said in one topic I’ve posted above and first remove the overrides from this blank page and then move all pages with overrides (red triangle in the corner) to one page back. But I need to be 100% sure, that it won’t spoil anything from my score. And I don’t know what about the staff spacing, will it stay on the right pages?
It would be very helpfull, if someone could tell me what to do.

First, I expect you are working on a copy of your file.
If you are working to a deadline, you may want to keep the blank page in. You can always remove it with PDF software when time comes to send it to a printer, although you may have to adjust the pagination. Later, when you have more time, you can go back and wrestle with the extra page and subsequent formatting.

The actual folio #s are easy enough just to do in Acrobat. Pre-Dorico I did multi-movement parts and scores that way all the time. The biggest issue I assume is that it is only one blank page (not two), so removing it leaves all the left and right binding gutters screwed up in a PDF. Deleting the page in your file affects some of the master page overrides from that point on, as you’ve discovered.

Maybe try saving a different version of your file, so you use one version to create a PDF up to the blank page and another for that page onward. In Layout Options, flip your Inside and Outside values in the 2nd file as you now want right pages to be left, and left to be right in your PDF. Delete the page #s and just add them as a Header in Acrobat. Assemble the two files together in Acrobat and it should look fine.

Also, if you were consistent about applying a Page Number paragraph style to all of the various page #s in each master page and master page override, you can get rid of them all at once by just changing the Foreground Color of the style. Set the Alpha channel to 0 and all the page #s will be invisible all at once. Otherwise you may need to delete them individually on any page with an override.

At present, you can’t. The suggestions you received the above are the best way to go at this point.

Thank you very much for all suggestions, I will try to use them.
I think the whole concept of master pages, frames, chains (etc.) in Dorico is brilliant, but the fact, that removing one blank page is such a problem is very strange for me. It should be very easy and intuitive thing.
And I guess, if I will decide to add some new explenations in matter pages and I will have to add new page for that, I will affect my score too? Is there any way to prevent it?
I wish to have the „lock page” feature, where you can lock all the elements in the page and be sure, that no matter what you do, this page will have the same overrides.

I understand the desire to lock page settings, but would that not lock gutter settings too unless you could lock different settings independently.
It might be easiest tot set music to start on page 1 and then to create intro (text) pages as a separate file or flow to be combined later, perhaps with small roman numerals for page numbers.

Agreed. For those of us that are used to using a program that uses the concept of Master Pages already, such as Adobe InDesign, the fact that the pages don’t automatically adjust correctly if a page is removed is very strange. In Dorico, if I create a Master Page called “Score First,” apply it to the first page of my score, then insert a blank page before the first page, Dorico correctly now applies my “Score First” master page to the 2nd page which is of course the page of music I had applied it to. If I change my mind, click the new blank first page and select “Remove Page Override,” which according to the manual is the way to delete a page (Deleting pages), and remove my blank page, the “Score First” master page is now applied to the second page not the first, which is the wrong music for this Master Page to be applied to! Dorico adjusts the master pages when adding pages but not when removing them which makes for a mess and a lot of extra work in your situation Del_Gesu.

It would be great if Dorico could have a “Remove Page” command in the future, instead of just thinking of the blank page as a Master Page override. The way to add the page of course is “Insert Page,” it is logical for the user that the way to remove it would be “remove page,” or “delete page” or something similar. (Paging Tantacrul, LOL) Heck, even the ability to set “Insert Page” to -1 would at least be a workaround. Currently, I guess adding blank pages at the beginning of a score really has to be the last step (or just done in another program) as there’s no easy way to undo any of the Master Page edits that follow if the user changes their mind about the number of blank pages. Unless I’m just missing something here …

All page overrides are stored relative to their index in the list of pages, and removing an override on (say) page 2 does not then move all subsequent overrides from pages 3 onwards backwards by one page. Sometimes that would be what you want, and sometimes it wouldn’t. We added the buttons to move page overrides left and right and the ability to move a page override to a specific page to try to provide some additional help with these kinds of situations, but I agree that in the specific case of removing front matter, it’s not a huge amount of help. We also know that it is very unhelpful that staff spacing adjustments get removed even when the page index changes, even if the casting off doesn’t change, and that is certainly something we intend to revisit, though very probably not before our next major release.

Next major release 3.0?

Thank you for information.
So, if I understood right, there is no way to remove the blank page without affecting anything else, yes?
But what if I will create second blank page? Will it affect my score in any way?

I honestly don’t think much has changed in this area since I posted about this nearly two years ago, here: How do I remove a page in the middle of a score? - Dorico - Steinberg Forums

Hello,
I begin the revision of the score that I did in Dorico 2 (the same as I describe in this topic) and I need to add a couple of front matter pages.
Now I have the Dorico 3.1.1, but I haven’t had a chance yet to use it since I finished this score.
Has anything changed about the subject of adding/deleting pages without change anything in the rest of the score?
Let me paraphrase my earlier words. In my score I have many pages with overrides. Many frames and manual staff spacings, so how can I be sure, that if I add a couple of pages, everything else will stay on it’s position?

No, there’s nothing new in this regard. Under some other circumstances, e.g. changing the musical content, staff spacing and lyric adjustments will be retained, but at the moment those adjustments are still keyed off the page index, i.e. how many pages through the layout the frame occurs, so if you add pages at the front, at the moment those edits will be lost as all subsequent page indexes will change. This is absolutely something we plan to change, but I’m afraid it’s not yet been done. Depending on the amount of work you would have to redo it might be better to consider simply changing the page numbering and then adding the required front matter outside of Dorico, e.g. by combining PDFs together.

Thank you, Daniel, for fast response. I haven’t been on this forum for a year and it’s good to see you’re just as helpful as you were before. All the best.