How do I remove a page in the middle of a score?

Dorico
#23

Again, it comes down to context:

  1. Have a layout where flows can start on existing pages.
  2. Invoke a master page change (because you want titles or something at the start of a flow midway through the layout).
  3. Override something on the frames on that page (e.g. because you want another title midway down the page).
  4. Fiddle with pagination on previous pages (e.g. by cutting 16 bars).
  5. Delete a now spare previous page (by moving to the end of layout and then removing page overrides from this page).

Step 3 - introducing an override - locks the frames on that page in their current state, and that includes the position of the (totally default) page number text frame at either the top left or top right corner.

It would be jolly lovely to not override Master Pages ever, but - and this is crucial - merely replacing {@flowtitle@} with {@flow2title} constitutes an override.

I cannot for love nor money find a way to have a new flow start halfway down a page with an existing flow WITHOUT either creating a brand new Master Page (specifically for that single page) OR introducing an override.

#24

@Derrek, no, I’ve checked my Master Pages. I’ve become very adept at copying L->R, then immediately clicking the page number frame on the RH page, unlocking the R constraint, locking the L constraint, deselecting the frame, reselecting the frame, then setting the Left frames property (on the bottom pane) to 1pt. One also has to double-check the justification of the text within the frame.

Besides, it’s only overridden pages that display page numbers in the wrong places - all the other pages based on first/default etc. display just fine.

#25

Leo, there is no way of having a flow start halfway down a page and show a title etc. that doesn’t involve either a dedicated master page of a page override. It’s inevitable.

But I assure you: if you insert or remove a page before a master page change, when the master page change moves such that it is now on the left-hand side of the spread rather than the right, or vice versa, then the other page from the master page pair will be used, and provided that pair is set up properly with the page numbers on the expected side for each page of the pair, the page number will appear on the correct side.

#26

Oh, and an overridden page will of course not update when it moves left or right. It’s overridden, so it no longer gets updated like a non-overridden page does when the pagination changes.

#27

Exactly! (Glad I’m not being dense here.)

#28

Hi Folks,

This is my first post here and I am only just scratching the surface with Dorico so what you guys are performing here with the program is far beyond my experience. However, in terms of work flow:

Would it be achievable and worthwhile to create a master page at the end of your flow that remains blank and is in situ for the purpose of copying, sorting and editing excerpts outside of your set pages. Instead of creating a blank page in the middle and performing these edits there, do it at the end of the flow. Then when done, you remove those pages and your layouts aren’t effected.

Does this make sense?

#29

Welcome to Dorico, Sadhaka!

That’s an interesting idea but I don’t think it really helps much, because you would have to change the order in which the music “flows” through the pages to jump out of sequence to the last page and then jump back again. You could do that, but it seems to me like you would just be swapping one problem for a different one.

This should become a lot simpler when you can start a new flow in the middle of a page and automatically insert the flow title etc without doing manual overrides - but that isn’t implemented yet.

Another aspect of all this is that people really seem to like tweaking the format of the project before all the music is entered and the page breaks are stable. There is a well known saying in computer programming that “premature optimisation is the root of all evil”. It also applies to document creation - though WYSIWYG products like Microsoft Word etc have led most people up that garden path! Dorico tries to separate “creating the content” (write mode) and “formatting the document” (engrave mode) but it can be hard to break the habits of a lifetime and start working a different way.

Actually, really large-scale document creation has always worked best the “Dorico way” - try creating say 10,000 cross-references and a similar sized index in a 1,000-page document using the menus and dialogs in Word, and you soon learn the limitations of WYSIWYG compared with a completely text-based input format! But most Word users probably consider a “large document” to be 10 pages, not 1,000.

Of course in music theatre people need to do frequent updates to the music - but even then, does saving half a page of paper in the printed parts really matter, compared with the amount of time and trouble it takes to save it - especially if that version will be thrown away and replaced by another one in a few days anyway?

#30

Rob, the need from frequent updates is not limited to theatre music, it is my usual way to use scoring software. So I can’t agree with your statements. It is of course necessary to change any parts of the music at any time one wish to do so, without destroying already finished parts. Generally, this is one great advantage of software over to do it by hand. If this behaviour will not change in future I know my layout way: back to InDesign.

#31

Isn’t that the problem: you are trying to use Dorico based on habit developed using other programs?

#32

No Derrek, it is the approach and the need which a musician have. Software should serve people, not the opposite way. A little story: one day I visited a shoe store to buy new shoes. As I am having rather wide feet, this is generally a little problem. So the - nice - sales girl shows me a couple of shoes - but no one fits to my feet. At the end she said: “Sorry, but your feet are too wide.” I answerded: “No, the shoes are too narrow.”

#33

Rob,
I totally see your point, and I try to wait with any overrides until the music is done (although my habits tells me otherwise). But as I do a lot of music theatre, this has become quite problematic when it comes to page turns, as these needs to be addressed in every print. I hope for some better way to insert blank pages in the future, but I don’t mind waiting, as Dorico already is a huge timesaver for me :smiley:

#34

No, I think the problem is that you are wasting time by doing things in the wrong order. I can’t see any need to “finish” one section of a part before you change something else.

If you insist on working a different way, then it might be better to use different software - though I can’t see now InDesign will save you any time here, but that’s your decision not mine!

I have spent a lot of time creating and editing very large documents - more like 10,000 pages (in several volumes) than 1,000. Doing a lot of detailed formatting before all the input is complete (or almost complete) is simply a waste of effort, because you have to do it again, and again, and again…

Of course you might want to “finish” formatting a short section of the complete document to find any problems with the document design, etc - but that isn’t the same as continually tweaking the format every time need to change the content.

I’m not saying anything “new” here. I could quote from a book on document design written in the 1980’s which makes the point that “What you see is what you get” is a bad name - it should be “What you see is ALL you get,” and if you change some formatting on page 1, you risk losing all the work you have done on pages 2 to the end!

#35

I can see both sides… although, I somewhat lean more with Rob on this one.

If you are tweaking documents long before they are done, then one must expect to re-edit the layout that occurred.

However, I do see that maybe some functionality needs to exist. If I am a teacher creating a worksheet/test/etc., and next year I realize that we didn’t cover a particular topic or I need to add some questions, it would be beneficial to have some kind of “lock current page and contents” function, where I can then delete unwanted stuff or add stuff, without interfering with the stuff that already took time to edit. (A function somewhat similar to insert mode)

Also, maybe a page turn algorithm is an answer as well? That way people making daily/weekly changes don’t have to worry so much about pages working and parts working correctly.

All this to say though, if you make changes, one should expect some level of editing on the back on end.

Robby

#36

Thanks for the welcome to Dorico @ Rob Tuley :slight_smile:

I agree with much of what you have said and I think that a lot of the issue here comes down to workflow:

I have just started doing a workbook based on the ‘Creating a Worksheet’ pdf provided by the Dorico team. Much of the work of layout and entering text seems to take place in Engrave mode. Traditionally, Engraving was the final step before print and once put down on the plate, any major changes would require the scrapping of the old plate and the starting afresh.

In the OP from @pianoleo, it appears that he had to shuffle the order of a few Flows and text boxes, and in order to do so he made a new page, did the shuffle and then couldn’t delete the now blank page without the layouts and overrides.

My idea was that (as long as the existing page would retain the same content) you could do these shuffles on a different page at the end or in a different document and the copy them back to the original page. In this way, the other pages wouldn’t be interfered with. I did this in Sibelius all the time in the Good ol’ Days.

Making my workbook in Dorico is like “Wow, this is so awesome!”

If in the real world you had 60 physical pages laid out in order and you realised that one needed amendments, you could lift that page out and replace it with a new alternative. No other page would be altered. I think that pianoleo was trying to see if this could be achieved in the software domain. Naturally, one should have their edition completely flawless before sending it to the Engraver… How many editions do we all own where there are obvious engraving errors lol!

Robby Poole touches on this above and this is a very valid point that I will no doubt experience. As I am on a very steep learning curve developing my workflow, my terminology may be a bit off. An unlock all formatting/overrides function is essential for keeping revisions and updates a realistic outcome for our work.

#37

Look at the title of this thread.
The whole point was about the possibility of removing a single page somewhere in an existing score. Score, that is, not parts.

I engrave for theatre, for publication, and often things change, sometimes post-publication (as in we produce 2’d or 3rd reprints of things.

In “product A” most numbers are separate files, and the only real pain in removing a page from the middle of a score is updating all the page numbers.

Without an operating manual I was under the mistaken impression that Dorico could deal with each number in a project being in one file, and that page numbers would automatically be sorted if a number was added or removed. Though a limitation has appeared here, I’m still very keen on Dorico over “product A” as it comes with many positives over “product A”.

I agree that one should not set about “engraving” a project until one has finished everything else, but in my line of work changes are often needed down the line, and there’s often a manager or editor at the publishing company who’s likely to say “well that used to be possible, why isn’t it now?”.

Of course there are always workarounds - the obvious one is inserting a manual page number change and making a note to self to “delete page 26 in Acrobat Pro”. I’m merely trying to get past using workarounds in regard to Dorico, as workarounds seem to go against the ethos of Daniel and the team.

#38

@pianoleo,

I hope I didn’t cause offence… My references to engraving is actually more to say that the Engraving section of Dorico allows much more flexibility than would be available in a old school real world engraving scenario.

Are you in a position to open an older version where you haven’t made the changes, add a page at the end and do your sorting there, then copy it back to the existing page? Deleting that page at the end presumably would not change your existing work’s layout. I am looking for a workflow solution that isn’t necessarily a workaround…

I hope that through this discussion we can work out a solution embedded in Dorico, as you have opened up some really good discussion about important editorial functionality :slight_smile:

#39

You certainly didn’t cause offence! Thanks to the magic of backup versions (Dorico hangs on to I think 5 by default for each project, though I have a separate solution that hangs onto infinite versions in the cloud) I only lost half an hour’s worth of work, and came up with a better way of fixing the problem.

From memory, I think I nudged the text frames up, over the first music frame (using the properties pane rather than the mouse) and then reshuffled them, negating the need for a spare page - though your method would work just as well.

I know that Dorico’s Engraving mode offers much more flexibility than old school engraving, but I’ve been with “product A” since 1997/8 and I’m used to working separate numbers/movements/flows in separate files. That’s until literally four bars of “chant” turns up, in which case that gets tacked onto the end of the previous number, or the start of the following number - that’s what I was originally posting about.

Elsewhere on this forum Daniel’s talked about the planned implementation of “flow breaks”, which will enable “front material” (title/composer/dedication etc.) to automatically appear at the start of flows, anywhere on a page. This will hopefully eradicate this current limitation.

#40

Good luck with your work mate :slight_smile:

I must say that it is exciting to be at the ground level of Dorico and to see all of this development taking place!

#41

There are many scenarios where this is the only way. Think of collections of pieces where you want to add new pieces from time to time (a choral book for example). Or other open projects which grow with the time (often modern composers are reconstructing there pieces for different occasions). Or think of collcections of pieces for an instrumental school.

If you insist on working a different way, then it might be better to use different software - though I can’t see now InDesign will save you any time here, but that’s your decision not mine!

Which? In all other scoring software I know you can achieve this workflow only by separating the “flows” in individual files and then exporting as graphics and importing for example in InDesign. But this workflow is also be possible with Dorico, I don’t have to go back to other scoring software. But my big hope is that this step - using InDesign - can be omitted.

#42

Perhaps the solution is for In Design to add a music notation module.