Merging separate files in Dorico

Hi, Is the title of this topic possible so that, all text frames and settings are kept after the marriage?

Finale offered this, but the result wasn’t quite good so far I remember, especially when the separate files contained pictures and text content, too.

Hi @kaposi.g, did you try with File > Import > Flows… ? (Starting from the Project that should appear at the beginning of your merged Project)

If you have page or other overrides, the imported material may look different than the original. If you could share a couple of separate projects that you would like to merge, we can take a look.

Hi @Christian_R , of course I use almost on a daily basis flow import, what is just amazing in many cases. What I’d like now is to make one file of about 10 files including all lent sunday choir music with loads of text blocks and quite a special layout. I assume there is no opportunity to do this, but thought it’s worth to ask, I never know:)

Did you try already? Maybe it works, and it is possible to eliminate the overrides of the original projects, so that everything will work nicely…

Would be hard with things like ProjectTitle, I think.

Of course there is also the possibility to merge the exported PDFs outside Dorico. You just need to adjust the starting page numbering on each subsequent project before exporting the PDF, so that the numbers are consecutive. It would just take few minutes to do this.

Yes, this is what I’m doing, but it is so tedious and also, it would be so smashing to be able to manage it in Dorico itself:)

And different page margins and a few other parameters…

I renew my offer to look at this deeper :slight_smile:
There are many possibilities, creating separate player Groups for each import, individual Layout for each imported project, to maintain specific layout settings, etc…

If you could provide just two project to be merged I can try out something for you :wink: (with no guarantee of success ahaha)

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H04 Nagybojt 1so vas full.dorico (1.2 MB)
H08 Nagybojt 2dik vas full.dorico (1.2 MB)
H10 Nagybojt 3dik vas full.dorico (1.1 MB)

Hi Christian_R, here are the first three Sundays. Being honest if it needed any further workaround, it is not worth to care, as you said I can do it easily in PDF X.

In Finale it was a command ‘merge’ (can’t remember where), and this added up files automatically. But it didn’t really work, so not too many tears to drop if it is not existing in Dorico:)))))

Thank you for the files, @kaposi.g.

Uhhh, that seems very difficult/impossible to do…, as your layout consist uniquely on Page Overrides, and L music frames (created into the layout).

My first attempts was unfortunately unsuccessful… I will try again, or someone may have further ideas. But for the time being, I think the PDF route is much easier and straightforward.

Hopefully in future Dorico will offer the possibility to convert layout created on the page itself (with L frames and customised text frames etc…) into Page Templates (this was already discussed and was taken already into consideration)

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Thank you for your effort, Christian, I think this idea wasn’t really Doricoic, and the whole way of thinking of Dorico is so amazing that I wouldn’t even call it a collateral damage:)))) I’ll use pdf merger, and maybe an other time I’ll create a cycle like this in one project from the beginning:) cheers:)

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Just another little tip: your manually inserted page numbers (written in the little text frames) don’t correspond to the “standard” usage of even numbers on left pages, and uneven numbers on right pages.

To correct this you could change the Initial Page Number in Layout Options > Page Setup > Page Numbers (for your 1. file set this to 4, for example)

(but take care of possible changes if you had different Page Margins for L and R pages)

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Gosh, I thought I’m doing it right. Will check it ASAP.

By the way, this is the first large project I was working in Dorico, and ignored automatic page number feature as I thought there is pretty enough to deal with, I don’t make even more complicated the task, even if in a grand scheme it is the easy way.:slight_smile: But this is something I’ll make differently in the future:)

Anyway, many thanks for your care:)

Gergely

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I would suggest using an external program, e.g. Adobe InDesign for this kind of publication.

I would omit page numbers in Dorico, it is best left to post-processing in external programs.

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A quick ‘fix’ using one of your files with an external program. It can most likely be made completely in Dorico, but it requires more work, and it’s less ‘dynamic’.

(I have no clue what this text is about. It looks Hungarian and something for the church, like a ‘High Mass Programme’. “Nagyböjt 1. vasárnapja” = “1st Sunday of Lent”?)

The text font (Times) doesn’t match the lyrics font.

BookSample.pdf (363.1 KB)

PS. If you seek design inspiration, have a look at @dan_kreider books. He has a very well-balanced layout. I think @benwiggy have made some too.

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Oh, thank you for your effort, I really appreciate it!

The text is indeed in Hungarian, and these few pages are indeed for the 1st Sunday of Lent.

What you did with it is really great, and I’ll immediately adopt the long dashes in the header!

The truth is, I’m not an expert in music engraving at all. I’ve been doing a lot of it for about 8–10 years now, but in an amateur way. The fact that this volume looks at least this good is solely thanks to Dorico—if I had used Finale, I wouldn’t even have been able to achieve this.

I secretly follow Dan and Ben closely and admire them—I hope that, even at the learning speed of an elephant, I can absorb at least a bit of their knowledge!

At the moment, I’m curious whether there are any general principles for beaming eighth notes when transcribing traditional plain chant notation. The available Hungarian sources seem to apply this rather inconsistently.

Once again, thank you very much for your effort!

Gergely

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PS Do you think that using two different font types for the text sections and the lyrics is not really aesthetically pleasing? Isn’t it boring if everything looks the same? Or is that the proper way to do it?

I’m glad it could be of some use/inspiration.

We are all amateurs to some degree, and being motivated by ‘basic interest’ and ‘plain fun’ is as good as any reason to work with engravings in general and with Dorico in particular.

As for the m-dashes in the header, they make a nice ‘addition’ to the classical ’book look’ (if that’s what you are going after). You could also have a look at various ‘ornament fonts’, e.g.

or use included graphics (which are less dynamic), but I wouldn’t ‘overdo it’. Less is more most of the time.

The beaming of 8th notes seems to vary over time, from ‘flagged’ to ‘beamed.’ I’m not sure what is the consensus today. I think flagged notes are regarded as old-style and beamed as modern style. I’m sure some users can advice better than me.

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General (modern) guidelines (i.e. not rules) suggest at most[1] two font families, one for the headings (not running headers) and one for the body text.

In the old ‘lead type’ days one did not have ‘20,000+’ font families available as today, so most publication were limited in the use of font families. I think it’s a matter of personal taste. It might look ‘boring’ with one body font family (also for lyrics) but it will looks as classy and elegant in 200 years time as it will look today. Fashion mostly last until next fashion comes along. I would go with the classical look. Most hymn books use only one font family.

[1]. There is always exceptions for any rule, like math(s) that uses multiple fonts/font families in a single text due to ‘markup’ and identification reasons. But we are not engraving math(s).

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