Leadsheet // Text position

I don’t really see how much more specific I can get. I can tell you exactly how to put measures on a system, but I can’t do it in German. I’ve pointed you to the relevant help pages but you claim that they don’t help.

I’m sorry you’ve had problems with the manual (I presume you’ve been using the translated German one?). The most recent Dorico 3 manual is currently with our translators, meaning we can pass on feedback now that they can implement for the next release.

You mentioned that words were missing / not appearing - can you tell me what you were searching for, that is, which terms exactly did you search? Were you looking for anything else in addition to your four questions? I can then feed back to the German translators that these terms would be good to include and we can find the best places to add them.

In case it helps, here are some links that you might find helpful (I know Leo has already shared some other relevant links) :

  • Casting off X bars per system - allowing you to say “have 4 bars in each system” by default, which you can also adjust if required using system breaks or frame breaks. You can’t, at the moment, say you want 5 bars in the first system, 7 in the second, etc and apply that globally - you’ll need to use manual system breaks if you want different numbers of bars in different systems in the same layout.
  • System breaks and frame breaks - including a note at the bottom of these pages explaining how the “Wait for next…” property works, and therefore how you can use that to “pull” subsequent bars onto a system or into a frame.
  • Moving text - if you’re in Write mode (Schreiben-Modus), you can move text to other rhythmic positions (either by dragging them or pressing Alt-Right arrow/Left arrow) - that’s where they ‘exist’. In Engrave mode (Notensatz-Modus), you can freely move text wherever you like - that’s where they ‘appear’. But, they still attach to their rhythmic position - you can see this with the dotted attachment line. So, in Write mode, you can’t just drag things around but in Engrave mode you can. This ensures the semantic meaning and placement of those items in the music is always clear. – If your text items for VERSE and REFRAIN aren’t correctly positioned, try moving them in Write mode - select e.g. REFRAIN, and press Alt-Left arrow until it’s where you want it. Items move according to the rhythmic grid resolution - e.g., if the resolution is set to 8th notes, each time you press Alt-Left arrow, the item moves an 8th note to the left. The menu for the rhythmic grid, and which indicates its current value, is in the bottom left of the window in the status bar.

Thanx to all of you for your posts and patience.

In Engrave mode (Notensatz-Modus), you can freely move text wherever you like -

This is the first thing that really helped with one of the problems.
And I always know that when sth is unclear to me, it is finally my problem/fault. I just ask in forums after I checked out other help possibilities, because I try not to ask too stupid questions not to waste time of people. And it is hard for me to say this all in my limited English… :unamused:
Sometimes the answers seem to me like this:
If someone asks you how to drive a car and you answer : you need wheels a motor etc.

So you know the Ingrediens, but not what they do how together. So if it is said

There are “Make Into System” and “Make Into Frame” buttons in the left panel of Engrave mode. What these actually do is insert a Break at the first thing you selected, and insert another Break at the last thing you selected. The first Break is told to “wait for next” in the properties panel. This basically answers questions 1 and 4.

I have some difficulties to find the relevant for the bar problem I have .
And as a summit , I thought to create a simple thing like a lead sheet would me much easier.

You mentioned that words were missing / not appearing - can you tell me what you were searching for, that is, which terms exactly did you search?

F.e.

Layoutoption
Layout
Notenzeilenspationierung
enharmonisch

etc …

so many words that are mentioned in the online manual can’t be found in the help tags of the program

Ah, if you’re using the search function in Dorico itself, that doesn’t search the manual - that searches the program for menu items/options, that is, things accessible from Dorico menus, or your operating system’s support, I believe. Choose Help > Dorico Help (or the German equivalent) to open the full manual.

If there are any search terms you’re using in the full manual that aren’t producing relevant results, do let me know so I can recommend them to our translators.

Ah, if you’re using the search function in Dorico itself, that doesn’t search the manual - that searches the program for menu items/options, that is, things accessible from Dorico menus, or your operating system’s support

I know… but the problem is, that key words in the manual do not refer to expressions in the programm This makes the manual useless cause you cannot find the things int the program which are mentioned int he manual.

If menu paths that should come up when searched for in the app are named differently in the manual than in the app, then please to tell us where and what those are as you come across them - I only write the English manual, so if there’s a chance of a mismatch happening once I’ve passed on text to translators, then that would be very good to fix.

Also if instructions to go to, for example, a particular panel or dialog in the manual don’t correspond to how things are named in the app, please do pass that on too. These sorts of things can be hard to search for across multiple languages in as large a manual as Dorico’s has become, so we really appreciate this sort of ‘real experience’ feedback!

I also wish gogollny would use the word “unhelpful” rather than “useless” to describe the manual. Realizing that gogollny is translating (and speaks English infinitely better than I would speak German), I think the word useless implies a broader failing than is appropriate for the situation described.

Hm, maybe you are wright, but I tried to use the Dorico help 11/12 times, with absolutely no helpful result. So in German the word “unhelpful” does not exist as one word… for me the Dorico help is useless.

And more in general:
I started to read in this forum the beginner hints , and the first link to the help:

new users start here

where the first link to the help page leads nowhere cause the page does not exist.
And things like this are not really encouraging. Sorry to say that.
The forum here is helpful at some point, but I often realize, that people who know a program very well often forget how to explain things to someone who is new. They use many specific words that do not help and give very just general hints.
Why not just saying: select the bars/notes you need and than press the “Into one system button” which looks like this: …
And not just posting a link to a general explanation of system breaks.

Would have been a solution in 10 seconds.

And an explanation like this I would really think should be found in a manual.
But there it is often just a general explanation, without examples how to use the program.

But I know that it is a big challenge to write a manual that really works well. And in the other thread I mentioned just a few of many musical expressions that are missing in the (German) manual.
Enharmonic
Notenzeilnabstand
Notenabstand
etc

Wish you a nice day

You did ask four questions in one post, so I thought I’d try to answer each one succinctly. Given your first reply to me was “sorry but I don’t get a word of what you write”, I’m glad I didn’t personally go into more detail about exactly how to use the “make into” buttons. It would have been a waste of my time, as well as yours.

I’m glad I didn’t personally go into more detail about exactly how to use the “make into” buttons

Hm maybe you are , I am not because that would have helped maybe.

“sorry but I don’t get a word of what you write”

If you read my reply than you would easily see, that this was because of German/English problems.
(F.e. the “galley” view is sth , even after I tried to translate it, that I can’t find / recognize in Dorico German version.)

And yes, you are wright, I already wasted a lot of time trying to understand and decode the “Logic” behind the way Dorico and the manual is working.

But anyway.

Thanx for help etc

Thanks for the pointer that the “new users start here” thread had a couple of broken links. I’ve now reviewed the links there and hopefully you’ll find that everything now points you in a useful direction.

Sorry for not reposting a link directly to steps for this - Leo had actually already linked to the task that describes exactly what you ask for: that is, this topic that describes the steps necessary to make a selection into a single system. It includes a screenshot of the relevant button in the Formatting panel (the one on the left in Engrave mode). I’d seen that you’d said you already knew this after Leo posted a link to this topic, so I didn’t think it would be helpful to repost it, but perhaps I should have.

Yes I can see now that “Notenzeilnabstand” produces no results, but “Notenzeilenabstand” does in the manual.
“Notenabstand” also produces a number of relevant results.
And “Enharmonic” doesn’t come up in the German manual, but “enharmonisch” (as I remember you mentioning earlier) also has a number of relevant results.

There’s a really tough line to tread in documentation between providing all possible terms/spellings/words etc and keeping a manual’s terminology consistent. In the English manual, I try to include synonyms at least once so that users have a better opportunity to learn which term we use in Dorico, but it’s not always practical or possible for translators to do this too (due to different languages having different vocabularies).

When you’re searching, if it’s possible to try variations on your search, e.g. with fewer words, an alternative term, or a more generic version of a word, I’d recommend trying that. Or, if you feel comfortable, you can always switch the /de/ in the help url to /en/ and try searching the English manual (all topics have the same name in all manuals, just with the different language code, so you can switch between languages on the same page). When the next update to localised documentation is published for Dorico 3, there will be an increase in alternative phrases embedded in the metadata in various places, which might improve search results for a wider range of musical terms. I’ll use your suggestions to check this once the translations are returned, and if in the meantime you come across any other terms that could either be added or provide more results, please do add to this thread - I’ll keep an eye on it.