I moved from Sibelius because I found that Dorico was far easier to use. I upgraded from the free version but don’t need the vast array of features in the Pro version. However, I would like to be able to print a few items, such as sub title and other items from the document settings on a hard copy or pdf. I have viewed the printing video and looked through the manual, but as far as I can see I need Engrave mode to allow me to print anything but basic items. As its stand I have to transfer the project back to Sibelius to print these items. Have I missed something, or is there a chance that adding a few print items to the standard print layout will be possible?
If you have not yet taken advantage of the 3.5 trial version, you could download a trial version of Dorico Pro and use your 30 days to create custom Master Pages that include the items from Project Info that you would need in your layouts later in Elements. (I am guessing you can choose different master pages in Layout Options, but you would have to already have the custom set(s) loaded into personal “template” files, since loading Master Page Sets would require Dorico Pro.)
Deciding where to draw the line in terms of functionality between Dorico Pro and Dorico Elements is difficult, and I certainly think about it a lot. This kind of feedback is also helpful as it helps to guide our thinking on whether we have the right balance between ensuring the Pro version has enough unique functionality of its own versus ensuring that the Elements version is sufficiently useful. Perhaps we don’t have the balance quite right here – I will think on it some more.
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Thanks, and I understand the dilemma. In case it helps the discussion, I play in a small band and arrange tunes for the band with a maximum or 4-5 parts, but am otherwise a solo musician. I am not a full time musician, so can’t justify spending too much on software that I don’t really need. I do prefer to buy good software and expect to pay a reasonable amount for it. The price jump from Elements to Pro is massive, so that is out for me. Personally I’d just like to be able to add a few fields to the standard layout, such as sub-title, composer and copyright. But if there were some add-ons or a modest upgrade I’d consider it.
as a former Sibelius owner, you should be able to get a competitive crossgrade, shouldn’t you? That’s far less than the Elements to Pro upgrade. Perhaps as you have already bought Elements, you might even get a bit off the crossgrade (though I don’t know if even Daniel can help with that).
I still have Sibelius, but it’s not the Pro version equivalent that provides the highest discount. Based on Daniel’s earlier reply I’ll hang on to see if anything changes, or just put up with what I have, or transfer the file to Sibelius if it is critical that I need to print something special. Thanks for all the suggestions.
If you don’t want to do the Dorico Pro free trial and set up some projects with master pages as you’ll need, you could ask whether anyone here might be willing to set up a project with what you need and send it to you.
I may have made too much of this. After experimenting further I find that the standard setup allows me to print title and author at the top and copyright at the bottom. I can accept that as the bare minimum, so will just use those settings.
What would be useful is some indication of the page layout showing where each printable field will appear. I have tried filling in most of the fields in the project settings and only the 3 mentioned will print. One or 2 more items, such as sub-title or notes (in a fixed position) could be useful, with a box on the project settings saying whether or not they should be printed. Anyway, I am generally happy with the settings as they are.
Here’s what the default full score First master page looks like underneath - it’s got a project title token at the top, with project lyricist and composer below, then copyright at the bottom.
Again, if you have a clear idea of what you’d like added and where, myself or someone else could set up a project in Dorico Pro for you - or you could sign up for the Dorico Pro free trial and do it yourself for now at least.
Lillie
If it can be done, it would be useful to have a text box above the title to be populated with the other information field. That could be used for arrangement or rehearsal information, or be used to contain other information. I don’t know if this box collapses if empty, but if that were an option it would be good. A page number underneath the copyright line could be handy, but not always important.
Thanks.
Stuart
Information above the title line of the first page exists in the Parts First Master Page, and is controlled by the LayoutName token.
I too would like just a few more printing and layout options.
Mainly the ability to add blocks of text, or jpegs. To have spaces between systems for text and graphics - I probably would be a bit overwhelmed by the sheer scale of Pro’s Engraving mode, but as I write for fairly small ensembles it’s the presentation that’s just a little lacking. I have two musicals for which I’m preparing the published songbook/libretto, and I’m going to have to mess about exporting & importing TIFFS or PDFs into another program, where being able to add text and graphics would do the trick! Of course I understand this may be stealing too much from the Pro version to be viable for Steinberg.
But I also find the jump from Elements to Pro an enormous barrier. I’d love to go Pro but it’s really out of the question unless my bank balance improves dramatically (ah how I remember those golden PRS royalty days of yesteryear, when BBC radio was my friend). It does hurt a bit that the cross-grade is so much lower than the upgrade, of course I can see the logic in that - but then maybe the program is actually priced too high anyway…
From time to time we do run promotions on updates and upgrades (though there are none planned right at the moment), so it is occasionally possible to pick up the upgrade to Dorico Pro at a much reduced price. It’s worth keeping an eye out for such promotions and making sure that you have indicated in your MySteinberg account newsletter preferences that you are willing to receive newsletters from us.
Having read several comments here and delving more into how I can amend the default layout content I can live with what is available, although the ability to add an additional text and/or graphic box would be useful. What would also make life a lot easier is to label the Project Information fields with the token name so that they could be copied and pasted into a layout. If some of the existing print fields could be expanded to a text box, rather than a line, I’d be able to include just about everything that I need.
I did try to work this out from the documentation and videos. While the videos are excellent there is no index to them so it can take a long time scrolling through them to find the answer to a particular point. Doing a search on the user manual tends to take you to a reference for the item - what I’d really want at that point is an example.
Anyway, thanks for taking the trouble to listen and trying to work out a solution.
One useful tip in the Project Info dialog is that you type out the text elsewhere, like in a text editor or in one of the larger fields like “other info”, and copy/paste it into one of the line fields, the line breaks are retained. You can produce multi-line ‘entries’ for tokens this way.
I hear what you’re saying about examples in the manual - if you have a couple of specific pages where you’d have liked to see an example, that would be helpful. The difficulty is that the manual has to be completely universal and cover every and any potential use case, and specific examples could be misinterpreted as prescriptive. Elements is limited in the ability to customize these sorts of things, but in Pro you can more or less do anything so an understanding of how it fundamentally works opens the door to endless possibilities. Additional tutorials/walkthroughs/tips/forum posts are possibly better in these sorts of contexts.
Here is a project with both the full score and part layouts set up to show a dedication above the project title, subtitle below, and page number in the bottom corner of the first page (rather than on a separate line beneath to minimise vertical space usage).
You can keep it and start projects that you’d want to show these things in from it using save-as. If you leave the “project dedication” and “project subtitle” fields in Project Info empty, nothing will appear but just fyi the title won’t move up or down in that circumstance; you could probably double-click the page and delete the dedication token to move it up if you want but be aware that will produce a page override that, in Elements, you can’t later remove.
Thanks Daniel - yes I’ll keep an eye out.
I am delighted to read this, also that it works in Custom text in the Property panel, so I have achieved
da capo
minuetto
(It needed a little adjustment in Engrave mode)
On this subject, I was surprised to find that there’s no facility for printing an A3 landscape conductor score in Elements. Or have I missed something?
(cmd-shift-L) Layout options>Page setup, you choose a A3 size with orientation Landscape. What more do you need?
You don’t specify the size of your layout in Print mode, but in Layout options (as it can differ from a score to a part…)
Hope it helps.