I have been working on a pop band arrangement of ‘Blame it on the Boogie’. With our particular house style we offer the words (lyrics) as an independent print. I have attached my Dorico file and as can be seen the first two pages are based around our company template and both pages contain only text with the actual music appearing on page three; for copyright reasons I have deleted all the musical information. All we do in house, when required, is to simply print only pages 1 and 2.
Please note that any of the details in both pages 1 and 2 cannot be modified using anything in the Project info but this is what we used for page 3 – they are quite independent.
The problem I have is that I am unable to reproduce this and/or indeed edit the text based Master pages (pages 1 & 2). My next project requires three pages to accommodate the lyrics and I have no way of adding that third (fourth, fifth….) extra pages ‘in style’.
I have read a few posts on the forum here from people wanting text only pages. If this ‘flow’ is useful to any others then please feel free to use it – on the strict understanding that all references and logos to TopDots must be removed.
In the start of learning the program I must of pressed and messed around with so many permutations to achieve this – but it was all 99% luck!
Any ‘gurus’ around that understand what I’ve done and can replicate it?
Thanks
Regards
Dave
Two text only pages .zip (459 KB)
Thanks for this - TopDots - I’m sure it’ll be very helpful for a number of people.
I’m a bit puzzled by what you mean when you say you “can’t edit the text based Master pages”. I think you’ve started by tweaking the First and Default master pages to fit your house style, but then you’ve overridden it on pages 1 and 2. That is to say, you’ve not continued tweaking the Master page, but you’ve tweaked the individual pages so that they’re quite unique.
For future reference, you’re best off either editing the Master Pages themselves (by going into Engrave mode and double-clicking the relevant Master Page, which will open the Master Page Editor). Better still, press the + sign immediately above “Master Page Sets” to create an entirely new master page for lyrics purposes. Name it Lyrics, base it on (none) and make it a Custom page. Then set up your various text frames and put your graphic frame in for the company logo. Remember to copy left to right once you’ve finished the left page off. Then insert a new page based on this master page (the button immediately above the “Master Pages” dropdown, to the left of the #) and start filling in these text frames. You’ll then likely realise that something doesn’t quite fit or isn’t aligned exactly right. Resist the temptation to adjust page 1 itself - go BACK to the Master Page Editor and adjust the Master Page. Then delete all the text that’s unique to this song, so that you can save it as a template
Given Dorico doesn’t yet have an “official” way of copying layouts between documents, save your project somewhere safe so that you can duplicate it and reuse it as a template in future.
When you start working on a new arrangement, make a copy of this project, do all of your work in it, and when you want to insert a lyrics page go into Engrave mode and click the “Insert Pages” button in the right panel (it’s immediately above the “Master Pages” dropdown, to the left of the #. Tell Dorico to insert before page 1, based on your new “Lyrics” master page. Then it should just be a case of typing the right things into the right boxes.
For what it’s worth, I think you could be cleverer about the “TD0001/PB/0/Blame it on the Boogie” code at the bottom of page 3 - there’s no reason why this shouldn’t be a Project Info token.
I settled on text-only flows as easier to insert and extend.
I blanked the single music staff with opaque hard-spaces.
Steve, you know that you can have text-only flows that don’t have any musical content whatsoever, right? Without even a single stave showing up, anywhere in the full score layout.
No I didn’t know that. I can’t find the thread where I discussed this previously. Is this new?
Steve, this isn’t new, though I can’t find the previous thread either.
Create a flow then untick all the players from it. The flow tokens can be edited in Project Info, and can be inserted wherever you like. The only caveat is that Dorico won’t create a page for a flow with no music - you need to either insert the page and populate it with the tokens you want, or override existing pages with extra text frames containing the tokens.
It’s really useful for doing things like this:
It works exactly as you describe. I don’t know why I couldn’t do it before, nor why in the previous thread opaque text boxes were a good solution.
The new page doesn’t actually show up until you edit it, creating an override.
Two text only pages 2.zip (458 KB)