OK. I’ve officially given up on Dorico. After several months and watching an inordinate amount of videos I’ve determined that this program is unnecessarily complex. Today I have spent over an hour, without success, trying to move a graphic from the center to the right of the page. In Finale, you just select it and slide it. In Dorico I get a menu that looks more complex than a slide rule with top, bottom, right, left measurements - fills, alignment etc etc etc. PHEW!!!
Menus up top, menus on either side, drop down menus on the bottom. It’s just all too confusing. Sure - I can ask a question in this forum - as I have many times - and I’ve always gotten an answer. But who has time to ask hundreds of questions and wait for an answer? I may try MuseScore. As a last resort I may just keep one Mac solely for music printing and never update the operating system. This will allow me to continue with Finale, which I think is a far more user friendly program.
I just can’t afford to put in the inordinate amount of time it will take to learn to use this overly complex program.
I’m sorry to hear that you’ve reached the end of your tether with Dorico. It obviously is a very different program to Finale, and it is not easy to learn a new application after many years of using something with which you have become intimately familiar.
Moving a graphic should be pretty easy:
Switch to Engrave mode.
Click the button to select the frame editing tool in the left-hand toolbox:
Now you can click on the graphic, which will show handles on its frames.
Drag the graphic frame with the mouse, or once you have the frame itself (not one of its handles) selected, use Opt-Command-right arrow to move it where you want it to go.
Of course you should check out other programs to see which is the most suitable for you. Depending on your needs, it may be that something other than Dorico suits you better. But if you do decide to give Dorico another try, we’ll be here to help.
I tried dragging by the handles - it didn’t work. I must have been doing something wrong or had some other option selected. This is what I’m talking about. It’s too confusing. Thanks for your response though. My only other regret is I shelled out the $150 for the Finale to Dorico “upgrade”.
@pfmusician I also became frustrated the first time I tried to move a graphics frame. First I tried grabbing it in the middle of the frame, the way you would select and move a graphic in some other programs. That just deselected it. Then I grabbed a handle. That resized it the frame. Finally, it dawned on me to select one of the sides. Ahh… that moved it.
Dorico doesn’t always behave as one has come to expect from other programs, and that can lead to frustration. But please persist. It is an excellent program for most users.
Well, since I’ve already sunk 150 bucks into the program, I may continue to tinker with it until, if ever, I feel comfortable. My last two arrangements, though they were small ones, I reverted back to Finale. I finished them in a relative flash. But that’s because I’ve used Finale for over 20 years.
I’ll use Dorico when time isn’t an issue. We’ll see how things go.
@pfmusician
Yes, absolutely: I would suggest to learn Dorico without any deadline. Exercise it with simple projects at the beginning. Don’t try to replicate the workflow that you used in other Programs, approach it with a fresh mind, following the well made videos that you find in the Resources site, and the Manual as reference. And Dorico will reward you, with its elegance and consistent workflow. Dorico is phenomenal. I hope you will discover its advantages soon. We are here to help if you have any specific question.
