Hi I would like the 2 quavers to notate as one crotchet.
i have been through all the notation options and layout options but so far I cannot find what I need to change to give me what I want. It must be something very simple but I just cannot find it.
Thanks
You could use “[2+3]/4” as your meter instead of 5/4, thus telling Dorico to group the first 2 and the next 3 quavers together.
That looks distinctly odd – was this an XML import, or perhaps do any of these notes have Force Duration active?
Specifying beat grouping as part of the time signature, as Estigy suggests, is generally a really good way to handle this sort of thing.
Hi Lillie
"You are so right, you make everyone else seem wrong”
[Quotation from the film Pitch Perfect.]
I am slowly converting many years worth of music from Finale over to Dorico. This was an import and I was surprised when I saw the note groupings. I thought it would be easy to fix with changing something from one of the Library menus, but maybe not.
Ii will try to fix with the beat groupings.
Thanks for your help Lillie and Estigy
Select all, and choose Edit > Reset Appearance and Edit > Notations > Beaming > Reset Beaming to unlock note grouping/beaming that came through the import.
Or, go to Preferences > MusicXML Import, untick most options, and re-import the file.
Ha, this is exactly the thing I’m currently going through.
Please do know that you are not alone in this journey 
In Dorico’s program options, section XML import, there are numerous features you can deselect in order to have Dorico do its own Magic and keeping most of Finale’s quirks outside. This really helped getting better results.
Hi Estigy.
I tried your idea and it worked great. Many thanks
I was afraid that if I did anything like you were suggesting, then I would get a strange time signature. I hadn’t realised that it would stay the same as 5/4
I’m glad you took the risk of trying
This way you can tell Dorico how to group notes.
E.g. [2+2+3]/5, [3+2+2]/5, and [3+4]/5 will always result in a time signature of “7/8”, but each one will yield different beams and syncopation.
