To be expected at first! because this aspect of Dorico has capabilities far beyond Finale’s. In this area it’s designed more like a page layout program such as InDesign or Quark. Getting comfortable with page templates is a whole new world for music copyists.
Here’s a link to one of my favorite Dorico success stories on the forum, particularly mentioning streamlined page layout tasks.
I don’t see myself ever doing anything as complex as that opera example. I still find Dorico EXTREMELY confusing. Right now I am dealing with staves writing on top of one another. In Finale you just tell the program how many staves per page and BINGO! It’s done. I am new. I understand. But it is taking me FOREVER to get simple things done. Writing a duet has become a monumental task. I find the menus confusing - thinks to click on the left, thinks to click on the right. “Layout options” is under “library”?? “Flows”, “Frames” ?? I will keep working at it because Finale is going away. But I am not a happy camper. I may check out MuseScore to see if that is more to my liking.
Thanks for your input.
It gets better. Figuring out where things are located and the logic behind it is a key skill initially. At the beginning, pre-manual, it was even more of a challenge; but the folks we rely on for sophisticated advice today are the ones nurtured in that environment.