Flow formatting

[Christian_Klikovits]

Hi guys, is there a way to retain staff formatting/positioning when duplicating flows? When I duplicate this flow:

I get this:

I would like the new flow to look exactly like the original one. Any way to do this quickly, without having to adjust everything again by hand?

[Derrek]

We do not know how you produced the first page, but would custom Page Templates do what you want here?

[Christian_Klikovits]

Hi Derrek, as far as I know, page templates don’t contain any actual staves, right? Just the frames…?

[Derrek]

That’s correct, but the frame margins can be changed to contain a staff that starts and ends more or less mid-page.

Since all you showed were an image of what you wanted, that’s all we have to go on.

[Christian_Klikovits]

I moved the staves to the middle of the page with the note spacing handles in engrave mode…

[Derrek]

So does that work for you flow to flow?

You haven’t said why you need this, which leaves us a little in the dark about the best solution for you, nor have you told us what version of Dorico you are using.

@dspreadbury

4. Post a project, not a picture
If you are having a problem with Dorico, the fastest way to get the help you need is to post the project, or a part of it, and not to post a screenshot. If you post a picture, you will almost certainly find that the first person to respond to your thread asks you to post the project. You may be concerned that the musical content of your project will be judged, or stolen. While we cannot guarantee that this will not happen, because of the supportive nature of the forum, this is vanishingly unlikely. There may be copyright or confidentiality restrictions that prevent you from posting the whole project. That’s fine! It’s always better in any case to cut the project down to a smaller size to attach it, particularly because there is a 4MB file size limit on attachments.

To cut down your project, first do File > Save As to save your project under a new name, to avoid making unwanted changes to your working project. If the project contains multiple flows, delete all flows except for the one that exhibits the problem. If the project contains multiple players, delete all players except for the one that exhibits the problem. If the problem is isolated to a particular bar or passage, then use the Shift+B popover to remove all other bars (e.g. select a note or rest in the bar after the problem passage, type Shift+B and enter a huge number like 9999 to delete all of the remaining bars in the flow).

Once you have cut down the project to the minimum scope that reproduces the problem, in Play mode choose Play > Playback Template and reapply the default playback template, or choose Silence. This dramatically reduces the file size of the project after you have deleted most of its musical material, because it removes the saved audio engine state.

Finally, attach the Dorico project it to your post.

If you want to add a picture as well (perhaps annotated to show where the problem exists), then by all means do so. But if your problem relates to a specific situation you’re experiencing in your project, you are guaranteed to get a more helpful answer more quickly when you include a suitable project file to reproduce the problem.

[Christian_Klikovits]

So here’s a project to demonstrate: I created a specific first flow (by moving things around in engrave mode so I have one bar centered in the middle of the page); then I duplicated the flow, and it copied the frame and the one bar staff, but it’s not in the same place on the page. What I would like is an easy way to copy the first page in this project, formatting and all, to multiple additional flows/pages…
Duplicating Flows.dorico (468.4 KB)

[Derrek]

Here is what I did.

1. I created a new Page Template with frame margins approximating those in your original Flow 1 page.
2. I removed all your page overrides and applied the new Page Template (“Centered Measure”) to all pages.
3. I went to your Layout and in Note Spacing unchecked the box to allow any staff to fill the width of the frame regardless of % filled.

Again, since I do not know how you intend to use this, I hope this will point you in the right direction if it does not solve you dilemma.

Duplicating Flows Altered230405.dorico (473.9 KB)

[Lillie_Harris]

@Christian_Klikovits using page templates with frames set up to be the correct size/shape and in the right place on the page is a much more reliable way to reproduce formatting. Moving individual systems up/down and left/right on one page in Engrave mode will only ever be a graphical offset on that page, for that system. Dorico doesn’t store that graphical offset information as part of the flow.

[Christian_Klikovits]

the frames won’t expand, though, in response to the density of the music, right? If I set the frame size in correlation to an empty bar, what happens if I then fill the bar with music?

[Christian_Klikovits]

Thank you, Derrek, I’ll try that!

[dwlarson]

Don’t worry about doing any formatting until all your music is enter. Put the notes in first, then go back and make frame adjustments in Engrave mode as needed.

On a side note, set your Engraving Options, Layout Options and Note Spacing to accomplish the spacing you desire as much as possible. Manually repositioning notes/bars/systems should only be done as a last resort. Ideally, you shouldn’t need to do any of that manually – resist the urge to do so unless absolutely necessary.

[Derrek]

Christian,
Please! Tell us what you are trying to accomplish here. We are not mind readers.
Are these flash cards? A part for marching band?

[Christian_Klikovits]

I’m setting up graphic slices to export as PNGs that I then use in Final Cut for videos. And the reason the formatting is so important is that when I drop the PNGs into final cut, I want them to automatically appear in the same spot on the screen. Here’s an example of what that looks like:

I hope that makes it clearer…

[Derrek]

Christian,

Thank you for this additional info.

I don’t think there is a way to have Dorico automatically center the measures, but if you take the largest measures and adjust the borders of the frame on the Page Template to make those fit comfortably, the way the Layout Option is set

should stretch any shorter measures to fit the frame.

[Christian_Klikovits]

Thank you, guys, that gave me a lot of ideas to work with. Appreciate you!