I’ve been using the line menu to insert some horizontal brackets above the top stave of a full score to indicate optionally omitted bars etc. The brackets show in Write Mode but not in Engrave or Print modes.
I’ve tried experiments with the other line options, both horizontal and vertical and they all seem to behave in the same way.
Am I missing something?
Any pointers appreciated.
Can you post an example document, or show screenshots of the settings of the Line, at least?
Ah, if those staves are condensed, lines won’t appear on them - it’s a known limitation currently, I’m afraid.
Thank you Lillie – you’re absolutely correct but I’d not managed to find this response elsewhere. What a shame. I imagine there’s no way around this then and it will all have to be done by text! Condensing is such a boon for a large score, which this is.
While you’re here, Lille, might you be able to say whether there is any easy way to add a false bar line across a score to indicate the start of a new tempo on, say, the fourth beat oin 4/4? I know I can split the bar into 3/4 + 1/4 but I wondered whether Dorico had a simple way to add a graphical dotted barline.
Have you tried moving the caret to the beat in question and using the SHIFT+B popover to add it (the pipe character | )?
That’s brilliant – thank you. I’ve searched a good deal for an answer to mid-measure barlines but simply couldn’t find one. It simply didn’t occur to me that this was an option. – much appreciated!
Just to add to @Derrek 's post. You can also add mid-bar repeat barlines using the shift-b method. Use colons and pipe (eg. :|:)
This is useful for all those repeat sections that start/end with an upbeat.
Excellent – thank you! I’m not sure that this is noted in the relevant page of the ‘manual’ but I might have missed it.
You can input barlines anywhere like all other notations. However, as barlines are linked to the meter, normal barlines that you input in the middle of existing bars are treated like a hidden time signature and can affect subsequent music, as mentioned here (although admittedly this isn’t my favourite bit of writing in the manual).
(And I’ve learnt something too. Thank you!)
You can insert a dotted barline with shift-b colon.
See Dorico 3.5 Operation Manual p245 for allowable options (Though it doesn’t mention the mid bar carat entry method)
If you follow the link in my post above to the set of steps for inputting barlines, you should find mention of inputting barlines when the caret is active mentioned. If you’re referring to the bars and barlines popover reference, it does indeed contain tables for the different possible entries for barlines and also adding/deleting bars and beats. You can navigate quickly to each table using the “on this page” links on the top right.
Reference material in any Steinberg manual won’t provide specific steps, and likewise steps won’t go into too much detail about what things are or all the possible popover entries. It’s one of the ways we keep information tidy and manageable.
Thank you very much for all this. I only wanted a dotted barline, and trying this appears not to reset the time sig so this should work fine. I appreciate the detailed explanations.
For some reason, Lillie, the page you kindly referenced didn’t come up in my search – very helpful.
What did you search, as that might help me improve the metadata for future users?
Lillie, no disrespect. We all know you are constrained by Steinberg’s house style for documentation. However the plethora of requests on this forum for ‘how do I do…?’ suggests that navigating the manual to solve a specific problem is proving a challenge for many Dorico users.
Your First Steps document is excellent. Would you consider creating a similar Tips and Tricks document? I’m sure the community would be willing to contribute topics from their own experience that would help new users.
Ha – I think initially it was something like ‘Dorico, false (also custom) barline’. That’s the terminology I had been used to in Finale. I think I also tried mid-measure barline. None of these appeared to reference the pages you have now indicated – at least for me.
Whilst I understand your broader point, I wouldn’t want the excellent advice, support, and structure offered by my manuals team colleagues to be mischaracterised as “constraining”. Authoring and maintaining the level of detail we aim to offer Dorico users in a single manual is quite a job, and I for one find the structured approach incredibly helpful when writing new documentation and when I go over existing docs that need updating. However, I don’t want to rehash or get stuck into old and well-worn discussions about documentation structure because a) they’ve been had, and b) I have documentation to write.
There already are various resources out there, both from Dorico colleagues and other users, that aim to offer information in bite-size chunks. For example, my colleague Ant’s Tips Tuesday videos. More are listed by John Barron on his excellent Resources page.
If someone manages to add a 25th hour in the day, I may well consider adding the creation of additional resources to my to-do list. For now at least, you could consider some of the excellent posts on this now-more-easily-searchable forum to constitute something of a community tips-and-tricks resource already, in addition to the First Steps guide and other resources linked above.
Thank you, that’s good to know - I’ve made a note.
Those lines you’ve drawn look like they ought to be Repeat Endings. Could you not use those?
