Dorico 4 Font issues

Dorico
1

Hello Dorico hivemind,

I am a seasoned Sibelius user and this is my first day trialling Dorico 4 Pro and I’m really struggling with some basic stuff. I haven’t even got to entering notes properly yet because I’m stuck on fonts.

Thanks to the help of Derrek I now know that “font styles” is now under library, not engraving.

I tried using the font styles menu to change my chords but it didn’t make any difference. Then I discovered I could change the overall look of my chart by going to music styles and changing from Bravura to Petaluma but the chord symbols remained as the same default text style.

Then I gave up on chords and thought I would just try adjusting the lyric font to play around but in the font styles I can’t see an option for lyrics.

I had to add the lyrics by the shortcut because I can’t see the button for it that shows on the tutorials I looked at (I’m guessing this is a Dorico 3.5 versus 4 issues).

Also, in Sibelius I use a font I’ve downloaded called Pori which is designed to mimic the “New Real Book.” I can see Pori in the dropdown menu for “font family” but when I tried to select it it made Dorico blow up.

Any thoughts on these things greatly appreciated.

Eleanor

2

You should be able to change the text font in your chords by selecting your desired font in Library > Font Styles > “Chord Symbols Font” > “Font Family”

If you want to change your Default Font for any font in the list then you’d adjust the “Default Text Font”. There might be an easier way but this is what I’d do.

Lyrics are in Library > Paragraph Styles (just below Font Styles)

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EDIT

  1. Yes, that worked to change chord font and Pori didn’t blow it up this time.

  2. Found the option to change lyrics fonts.

Thanks Daniel,

I’ll give it a go!

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4

I probably explained the first point really badly…

In the Font Styles dialog, you’ll notice that every font has a “Parent”. Much of the time this will be the “Default Text Font”. So, if you adjust this “Default Text Font” to a custom font, then any other font that uses the “Default Text Font” as it’s parent will also use your custom font.

The same logic applies to fonts in the Paragraph Styles dialog.

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Dorico uses a new(ish) standard for music fonts called SMUFL. Finale and MuseScore have already adopted the SMUFL standard for their own music fonts, but Sibelius hasn’t.

Long story short: Pori is a derivative version of Petaluma, rebuilt specifically for Sibelius. If you want the equivalent of Pori in Dorico, your best bet by far is to use Petaluma (and Petaluma Text).

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