Half note alongside four quarters

Screen Shot 2021-01-30 at 08.23.38 I’m trying to get this tied note to just show up as a half note. Using Force Duration doesn’t seem to work. I’ve also looked in the Notation Options but can’t seem to find anything. Should this really be so difficult? What am I missing?

You need to move the other pitches to a different voice.
See a primer on voices here, with helpful links underneath, or see How to Work with Voices in Dorico | Write Mode in Dorico - YouTube

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Screen Shot 2021-01-30 at 08.30.11 But then I end up with these extra rests… ? Do I have to manually go in and remove all of them in Engrave mode?

Absolutely not. Edit > Remove Rests is your friend.

Ok, I guess I should set up a hot key for that one. Thanks

It’s worth knowing that what it actually does is set the “Ends Voice” property for the last note or rest before the first removed rest, and sets the “Starts Voice” property for the first note or rest after the last removed rest. Setting these manually can sometimes be quicker than going through a passage and deselecting rests in other voices that you actually want to keep (though that can be achieved pretty swiftly with the use of a filter, generally speaking).

Okay, and how do I delete voices after having click New Down-stem Voice too many times?

This is easiest with View > Note and Rest Colors > Voice Colors turned on.
Go through your music and move everything to the smallest number of voices (which will quite often just be a single upstem voice and a single downstem voice) - this can be done pretty quickly with the aid of Edit > Filter > Voices > All Up-Stem Voices and All Down-Stem Voices.

Once you’ve done that, save and close the project. On reopening the project you should find that any unused voices have been automatically removed.

Alright, thanks!

I’ve taken the liberty of editing the title of this thread, in order that people searching for “force duration” in future aren’t waylaid by this thread.