How do I Delete A Single Page in Engrave Mode?

Dorico
1

Dorico Users,

I would like to delete a blank and a Title page added in my front matter on a project and replace them with new master pages. How do I simply remove a page from the layout if there seems to be no trash can icon with which to do this command. I searched the forum and the Manual but did not find an answer to this seemingly simple question. The Master Pages and the Master Page Sets both have Trash-Can icons to delete pages but it seems odd that, as far as I can see, there is no such option for the existing pages of the layout at the front of the score. I tried highlighting a page and pressing Delete but that did not work either. If I right-click on a page only the Add Page options are provided (as far as I can tell). Therefore it seems like I can only add pages but not delete them.

I must be missing something here in my understanding and I apologize is it is glaringly obvious but I just did not pick it up.

So how do I do this basic task?

Paul

2

Right-click on the page you want to delete and Remove Overrides. The page is only there because you’ve inserted an extra page (and thus overridden the default behaviour).

3

Thank you Pianoleo!

However,

My God is this confusing!!! Why can’t I just delete a page!

As you suggested I did a Right Click on the blank page 1 I had inserted and added text frames to turn into a title page (I have since made a Master Page title page and want to put it in the place of the one I created manually). I then removed the overrides on the first page as you suggested. The manually created title page went away but I ended up instead with two first pages of the music flow (which was disconcerting).

The very first page is the page 1 of the music score of my first flow (Its is a five movement piece) without any of my modifications (such as an inserted text frame I made for a dedication ). Then there is a needed blank page (which I had also inserted previously). Then there is the modified first page of the music of Flow I with the Text Frame for the special dedication which I had put in. That means there are now two page 1s of the first flow.

Weird! This result was disturbing…

I somehow get the impression that his result is because what I did previously was not at all the correct procedure. It was possibly just too ‘improvised’ on my part.

At this stage I am wondering if I should just remove all overrides and go back to square one and figure out how to do this properly (if there is a “properly” here). My impression is that I do not really understand at how the master pages work in page layout (I have looked at the videos, but am feeling more than a bit thick-headed right now).

What I need is a cover page for a big 75 page B4 score in five movements (five flows, each one with its own title) with a printed card cover that has a general title of the work on it. Then I need a second inside title page (with a black page in-between) that will go on regular paper. Then I need a blank page (or maybe not entirely blank as it could include contact info) and quite a lot of pages for text Front Matter which is there because of all the historical and cultural references I am making in the music (its a piece dedicated to Holocaust survivors whom I interviewed before I wrote the music).

I would also like a table of contents with page numbers because its a long five movement work.

Some of the pages of the Front Matter will also include inserted music frames with musical examples of some special scales surrounded by my text explanations. There will also be an explanation of ways to perform with some special, non-standard musical figures that must also be shown in a music frame. These figures are culturally unique; a Krechkt and an amazing kind of highly expressive oscillating Eastern European pitch bend.

So really this front matter is quite important.

I would just like to have the option to insert this material and then delete pages if I made a mistake in the layout or want two or three different versions with less or more text material. Right now I am confused as it seems I need to have a such clear idea of what I am doing with the Master Pages and how Dorico works before I attempt this somewhat more complicated kind of page layout (as you can tell I am feeling a bit stupid).

So given how very strange things now look with the two first pages of music flow, just a delete page command would have been quite nice!

Paul

4

pnicholls, basically speaking: In the Masterpage Editor create new Masterpages for each of your situations (make sure to copy from left>right at the end of each template).
Afterwards you leave the Masterpage Editor and go to the top right. (Remove all Page Overrides, if you have not done so).
Insert Pages, where you want them and at the same time define which (of your newly created) Masterpage to apply. You can the still edit these pages and tweak them, if you like to change something.

5

Would it make sense to put the intro material into a separate flow?
I wonder if Paul intends to put the same intro material at the start of each of the instrumental parts, in which case separate flows for separate layout categories may make sense.

6

Paul, it IS complicated. My own personal baptism of fire in this subject is here, for posterity: How do I remove a page in the middle of a score? - Dorico - Steinberg Forums
Read the thread end to end and you might get a better idea of how this works and why it works the way it does.

7

Unless I’m missing something obvious, you shouldn’t need to delete your pages. If they are in the correct place, you should just be able to first remove the overrides and then change the master page they use.

Your two cover page master pages should not have any music frames on them. If it’s your “front matter” master page that’s displaying the beginning of your score where you don’t want it, then it sounds like you need to have a separate frame chain (or maybe more than one) for your musical examples. These themselves may need to be in separate flows (you can deselect them from appearing in the master frame chain and messing up your 5 movements).

8

Thank you very much for the help. I was able to produce front matter for my work once I got some breathing space and could think straight about it. I worked on a general impression of how this is done based on this feed back. The first thing I did was create a new Master Page for text and Title pages any anything else I needed and them added them as I went. I was able to get what I needed in about 8 or 9 hours of work which seems to me to be pretty intense given this should not be that complicated.

It has been successful for the most part but I find the files very, very fragile to any changes I make to page numbering and other additions to the work. If any change in formatting takes place which changes the page numbering, the new Master Pages become ‘unstuck’ and have to all be reapplied to the layout. I think this is a super big problem with the design of the software that needs to be addressed. And if you add pages, I feel you should be able to just delete that element in the layout without any other elements being effected. The current situation is clumsy to work with and fraught with places where you can screw up really easily and have to start all over again from scratch. At least that is how it seems to me right now.

I have some last questions:

  1. Are there Frame Chains for text as there are in music frames?

  2. How do I had an instrument name in a flow? I have an extra flow for one of my music examples and found I had to name the instrument one way or another. I have violin 1 as the name but I would like to hide the name in order to save space and because its an example of an exotic scale.

Cheers

Paul

9

  1. No, not yet, but this is something I’m sure we will add in future.

  2. You could add a system break at the start of the flow, then select the break signpost and in the Properties panel you will find a property to override the layout options for the staff labels.

10

Hi Daniel,

Thank you, I was able to hide the names a the start of these musical examples in just the way you suggested. The layout now looks much better. Thanks for confirming the question of frame chains for text. It makes sense that it will be there in the future. I was able to work around the problem with a bit of care.

I have a question re creating custom shapes for the bend and a new multi bend symbol I need for a Klezmer ornament. I noticed in Dorico a list of many ornaments buried in the program (some of them Jazz ornaments and symbols) and not all of them seem to actually have been implemented in graphic form. There is one listed for dip/bend. What glyph will you be using for this symbol and how could I put this into my scores? I also need a custom multi bend symbol. I tried using a online graphics program to make the symbols but when I entered them into Dorico the result was an unusable mess. Do you have some detailed instructions as to how to do this?

Thanks again

Paul

11

If Bravura contains the symbols you need, then you can use Engrave > Playing Techniques to create a new playing technique that uses the appropriate symbol. You can find detailed instructions for the use of the Playing Techniques dialog in the Dorico 2 Version History PDF.

12

I had the same problem, trying to delete a title page but it moved music pages forwards when I tried it. I was not able to get it done, so instead I deleted the exported PDF page.

13

Hi Daniel,

I found one symbol in Bravura that seems to do the job of indicating a bend pretty well and I have decided to use it. For the multiple-pitch-bends-in-a-row effect (which is pretty cool and super expressive) I am currently substituting something from Guitar notation but its a bit misleading in its shape so it would be great to have something much better. I would like to create a glyph in the desired shape and import that into Dorico. I tried this with a PNG type of file but it was a failure when I tried to import it into the techniques editor. I don’t know the file type I need or how to isolate the tiny shape I designed so that this is all that is imported along with a transparent background. If anyone knows how to to that I would be most interested. Or if there is someone on the Dorico team that can show me how that would be great too.

Back to the main topic of this thread: If I could, I would like to comment on the situation in regards to master pages and page numbering. Since I added 6 pages of front matter to my 5 movement composition, the title page of each flow becomes “unstuck” every time I make a formatting change that results in a change in page numbering. For instance if I add a page a the start to the project, the master page for the flows shift away from the first bars of the flows (the nominal page one for each flow, if that is clear). This can also happen sometimes if I change the music formatting within a flow (for instance by a frame change brake) such that the number of pages in one of the flows changes. Depending on which flow the change in page number changes, all subsequent flows will have their master page title pages moved. I then have to reassign the master title pages to the first pages of each flow. I have to do this every time there is a change in page numbering caused by either scenario.

I think this behaviour can be very, very tedious to deal with. Initially it was very alarming to see this happen (Yikes!! I screwed it all up!! What do I do??). I know how to deal with it now, but I think it would be better if the title page of each flow was somehow ‘anchored’ to the beginning of a flow no matter how the page numbering around that point changes. If that were the case, it seems to me that this behaviour would not happen anymore. And a lot of time making changes and double checking everything would be saved!

It may be that this ‘anchoring’ feature is already there and I am not ware of it. Please tell me if there is a command or check box I do not know about yet. I really appreciate the page layout features but the program has ways of functioning I am still not very aware of. If you do not have a way of anchoring a master title page to the beginning of a flow, then it seems to me that this is something you might look at improving in a new version of the software.

Having a Delete-Page function would be really great too because there are so many formatting modification options programmed into one page after a while that all of these have to be removed too if I wish to remove a page. If I could just see a list of those modifications and just be able to remove a previously add page that might work. However, right now this is very annoying situation to be caught up in. Big time suck and the big selling point of Dorico is that it should save you time.

Cheers

Paul

14

I’d recommend trying to import an SVG file rather than a PNG into the playing techniques editor, though in fact a PNG should work fine. However, in 2.0 there is a problem whereby the aspect ratio of the graphic you import will be ignored at the initial import, and you’ll then need to adjust the aspect ratio and scale factor of the graphic to get it into an appropriate shape and size.

There is no “anchoring” feature for overridden pages, and I agree with you that some operations involving shuffling pages around are awkward at the moment. I am sure we’ll be able to bring some improvements in this area in the future, but it’s not an immediate priority for us at the moment, I’m afraid to say.

15

HI Daniel,

I can imagine there are many other things that are more important than the ones I mentioned simply because not that many composers are going to be adding extensive front matter to their works. However, it would be nice at some point if there were improvements made to the handling of text. Other things I noticed are issues to do with Italic and Bold type for headers and titles are not being tracked by the software in the way that they are in a word processing program. These type features are lost if you do any cutting and pasting of text (I am sure you know what I am talking about). Getting the normal spell checking features of MacOS would be great too at some point. I am dyslexic and don’t always catch these issues visually so have to cut and paste constantly from a word processor.

I am afraid I do not know much about SVG files yet and encountered problems and will have to research this more soon.

Cheers

Paul

16

I don’t know: title pages, editorial notes or special instructions, contents, etc are pretty common. However, if you just want pages of text and find a DTP app better for your needs, then you might want to create PDF pages from the DTP app for the frontmatter, and then combine that with PDF pages from Dorico. You can do this in MacOS’s Preview.

Personally, I find Dorico’s handling of text and fonts a breadth of fresh air from … other music apps, and have no trouble with Bold styles in Headers or titles (if you use the Paragraph Styles).

17

It’s certainly not that these issues are not important, Paul: they are most certainly important! But we have limited development time and realistically we’ll need to put a bit more time into other aspects of the program before we can come back around to the page layout tools. However, please be reassured that there is lots more planned in this area of the program.

18

So, in the same way- I added a front title page with the “Insert Page” button underneath the “Pages” section above the “Masterpages” section. Am I understanding correctly that there is no simple way to just reverse this, and delete that first page?? How can I get rig of it? I will simply use a word processor to create any other pages before and after the score, but this is very strange and frustrating. (see that attachment)

Screen Shot 2019-06-28 at 4.24.18 PM.jpg
Screen Shot 2019-06-28 at 4.24.18 PM.jpg1310×1065 125 KB

19

To delete it, just right-click on the page in the right pages panel, and select “Remove page override.” That page will disappear.

In general, it’s best to use a true Title masterpage for your title page. You won’t get an override, and you can get a consistent format for the title page.

20

Ok that’s strange, because I did that, and the page did NOT disappear. I must be doing something dumb…