Help with Pages and Templates For Cover and Title page

I am using Dorico Pro. I have read through other posts, waded through the manual, and I still am not getting any closer to understanding page templates. I am finishing up a piece for solo piano, and I would like to add a title page to precede the first page of music, but even how to do that is not clear to me, and I have no idea whether there is some kind of a default title page template because I cannot find a way to display available templates. Secondly, when I look at the current first page in the Pages panel, it shows TWO templates, Default and First. Which is it, or is it one layered on the other?
I’m not really a newbie to Dorico in terms of music notation, but this higher-level stuff is still opaque to me. Suggestions, please?

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The “First” page template is for the … first page of music. You can also set Layout Options so that the first page of every Flow starts with the First template, if you want.

Apart from the First page, all the other pages of music use the Default template.

If you just want a title page of text, you can add a Blank page and add text frames to it. You might want to create a template if you want the same title page on all the parts, or if you want to use it on other projects.

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I recommend to watch this Discover Dorico video:

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Here is what I see in Engrave mode when I look at my first page:


It says the Current set is “Default Full Score” (?) and within that it shows “Default” and “First”, both. If I switch between highlighting those two, nothing seems to happen. A Google search for dorico “add blank page” gives nothing. A search for “create template” gives random references but no manual pointers. I think I am pretty good with documentation, if I can find it, but I cannot.

I create my title pages and notes on performance pages in MS Word and print them as PDFs. I print out my Dorico scores as PDFs. I then merge the two PDF files into one and print any physical copies from that. Maybe not ideal for many but it works for me.

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What I can see from your picture is that the first page is overridden. Right-click it and Remove overrides for this page will get you into a clean state where we can start discussing what Dorico does. When overridden, a page ceases to be treated automatically by Dorico. That is the rule :wink:
You can choose in Layout options >Page setup >Flows how Dorico will use First page (you have several options).
Hope this helps!

I followed his instructions exactly up through “Insert Page Template Change”, and I now see the green backing on the page 1 icon in the upper RH corner ---- but I cannot see the new title page! There’s nothing new to see when scrolling all the way to the left.

Please watch the entire video. I must admit that I’ve watched the video twice to understand all correlations.

Please remove your overrides first. NOTHING will change until you have removed your overrides. :pray::pray::pray:

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How would I know if I have overrides, and how would I remove them, and how would I know what effect that would have on all the work I have already done?

You have overrides because there is a red triangle showing in the top right corner of your page 1 (in the Pages tool in your right panel). I already told you how to remove them (right-click that page).

Sorry, I missed your first post completely. OK, removed overrides, turned off all Flow headings (my piece is a single movement). I assume I need to redo my “Insert Page Template Change” at this point?

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I had done the overrides because in the default “First”, my first page title is completely off the top of the screen on page 1:

You probably have returns after your title, which shift everything up (which is weird because it is not an easy thing to do using the File info window…)
Did you use the File Info to fill in for your title and composer?
And yes, now that you have removed the overrides, you can start making changes to the settings and your first page will reflect those changes!

I did have one extra after the subtitle, but removing that I have:


And now in print mode, the top of the default title is still cut off a bit:

Yes, you need to edit your first page template (double click it in the right panel), so that the text frame that holds the project title and subtitle is high enough not to cut them. Dorico is rather dumb in that respect, you need to make sure there is enough room for your text!

Hah! Removing the extra return character adds a template change!

Don’t edit the page itself – edit the template!

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As I wrote…

OMG now I need a whole video to show me how to resize the template text frames without one overlapping the next, etc.!