Inserting graphics of formatted text and translation

Dorico
#1

I have a substantial Dorico project, a bit like a mini opera, and would like to add four pages of text/translation at the end of one of the layouts. The text/translation is in Word formatted in way that’s straightforward in Word, but not in Dorico. Any ideas for how to convert it to good quality graphics that I can import into graphics frames inserted in the added pages? Ideally the text would run from the edge of the Dorico margins.

At the moment I’m printing the text directly from Word, and then binding it together with the score. But it’s missing the Dorico page headers and page numbers, and I’d like it to be in one file so that I can make a printable PDF to circulate.

I’d prefer not to pay for extra software.

Thanks for ideas. Lateral ideas equally welcome!

#2

Unless it’s exceedingly complicated I think I’d have a good go in Dorico, even if it takes a few minutes. I may be making assumptions here, but have you really drilled down into what Dorico text frames can do?

You can use as many fonts/sizes/styles as you like, you can set tab stops (though I believe hanging indents don’t work). Tabs and line breaks work just fine.

Long story short, with a bit of fiddling I’ve got Dorico to display bits of script, correctly formatted, and even pull them from the Project Info fields (in simple-ish cases).

The hardest thing about exporting from Word is that it doesn’t export to any vector formats. It’s thus crucial to very carefully measure the area of the page you’re going to use in Dorico and then set that as a your page size in Word (and I guess remove margins in Word). Otherwise there’s a risk that scaling (resizing) the image in Dorico will give blurry text.

#3

You might be best advised (for the present) to print PDF’s of the Dorico segments and your page of Word text as a PDF and combine them in a PDF program that can do the page numbering in the PDF program itself.

It would be great if Dorico could incorporate pages of pasted-in, fully formatted rtf-style text in the future.

#4

There is a freeware vector graphics program called Inkscape which can save to SVG. You can save your Word file as PDF, then convert the PDF to SVG with Inkscape. You should be able to load the SVG into a graphics frame in Dorico.

#5

Thanks, Leo! I’ve been exploring Dorico’s text frames a bit further, and you’re right, I have more to find. I’m sure their capabilities will be improved over time, though I doubt the focus will be on the level of word processing capability that you find in Word. I’ll give it a go when I have a project with perhaps half a page of text.

Craig, you’ve hit the nail on the head for me with Inkscape. Thanks so much. Although (worryingly for a few minutes) Doric renders the graphic fuzzily on my screen in Print mode, it show up fine in other modes, and prints at full resolution from Dorico to paper, from Dorico to PDF, and from that PDF to paper. I can deal pretty well with the margins in Word.

A real benefit of being able to focus on text layout in Word is that I know I will be able to easily adapt the layout for the printed programme when the show is to be performed.

Great feedback already, btw, from the singers and players on the quality of Dorico’s presentation. For me working with flows and layouts has made the project a real pleasure. The ability to add cues will make life a lot simpler, though it’s not been too difficult using a workaround.

Onward and upwards.