Master Page request/suggestion

Hello Team,

I’ve just a request-suggestion:
Sometimes I work on a page engravement out of master page system. Exercises for students, text fields placed here and there…Often occur that I realise that editing maded could be useful to other pages or project.
What I suggest is to add a “create master page from selected page” function. This will allows to not loose a work made on a page, without the needs to reproduce all of that editing in a master page.
If someone tell me that this is already possible, I apologise and ask for instructions. :wink:

Thanks as usual

1 Like

It’s a nice idea, it has been requested before.

When you create new Master Pages you already have the option to base them on existing ones… or do I misunderstand you?

Yes you have misunderstood my question. The editing maded out of the master pages don’t reflect anymore the master page and if you create a new master page based on the existing ones then you don’t find the editings and frames maded independently from the master page.

Having trouble understanding what you’re trying to say. Regardless, point taken that there could be more flexibility and reusability with regards to master pages. However there are a lot more pressing issues in the docket, so meanwhile the master page system is pretty powerful already. And I’m not familiar with Sibelius/Finale but do they have anything like this? I get the impression that over there you are basically working in the engraving tool all the time, instead of the separation between music entry and layout.

Microsoft Word makes this mistake too, as do most older designed programs, which is to have one combined mode for inputting document data and the presentation of it. Dorico is more like La/TeX which separates the two and is a pure delight. And unlike LaTeX we have a built in WYSIWYG editor.

The OP means that they would like to be able to “upgrade” local page overrides and save them as a master page. Currently, any local page overrides can’t be transferred into a master page - so if you e.g. do a bunch of edits on one page, then later decide you’d like to reuse that design in other parts, you have to recreate it entirely from scratch as a master page in order to then apply it to multiple pages.

In this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD06Ua_guUk at the 5:55 the example start showing how to insert frames independently from master pages and is what all of us do sometimes, I’m wrong?
Ok. What I’ve tried to explain is the need to transform in a master page all the new editings done out from master page, as the video show.
I know that there are more advantages working in the master page, but there are situations where, as in the video, we create and customise frames independently from master page. At this point, once realised that the page is good, why don’t allow us to create a master page from the edited page? May be useful for other pages and other projects.
The way I work with Dorico is the same that the software allows us, writing and engrave in the respective windows mode.
You are right, Finale works in the way you are speaking about, trying to input and present in the same windows but this is not the mode I’m trying to request, I understand the differences.
I think that the Dorico engrave window and master pages management is very powerful and very useful, mine is jus a request for making things more easy when we realise that some editing is not made in master page.

the correct words that I can’t use due my bad English. Thanks Lillie :wink:

One of the advantages of this that I discovered last night while trying to create a new Master Page that was part music, part text, was that working in the Master Page editor, one could not see how far down the page to stretch the music frame to include the music before adding a text frame to include the text.

tomateck’s idea would allow one to work with overrides on the original page (and see how large the music frame needed to be) before converting the local page into a Master Page.

(Of course, by trial and error I worked it out; but this is a reason to consider tomateck’s suggestion.)

This. Exactly. It’s time consuming to create prefaces with performance notes or similar that way.
Until now, I always created them as local changes, but in a score with multiple parts you really want master pages for that.

Another option would be some sort of „live view“ on pages using this master page.