Regenerating a part layout

Dorico
1

Is there a command to cause Dorico to pass through a score and regenerate the default layout for a given part?

By way of background: I’m still pretty new to Dorico (maybe six weeks, but not new to music or computing), pressing forward on my first major Dorico project, and have not yet gotten to dealing with all the subtleties of layout. This is a learn-by-doing experience. That part is still ahead.

Yesterday I went through the piece and auto-generated harp pedal markings. These will be visible on the harp part only.

When I looked at the resulting harp part, the end result was radically skewed to the point of unusability. Far more is required than simply changing the spacing between staves and moving a few things over. I’m thinking a somewhat looser layout would be helpful, particularly vertically.

I’m not going to act on this just yet because although the piece will ultimately be set to print on A4 paper, I swapped it temporarily to US letter size so I could print a hard copy for hand editing purposes and have not yet returned it. However, I suspect that I will encounter similar problems when I swap it out and begin touching it up for final printing.

Two supplementary questions:

Can I change the size and font in those pedal markings? They’re huge. Do real harpists really demand to have them in rectangular boxes?

Is there a way to temporarily NOT SHOW tokens in write mode, which I assume is what those translucent colored additions to the score are? These now include the harp pedal markings, and in some places they obscure the music. I haven’t minded them up to now. They’re like scaffolding around a building on a construction site. Necessary and acceptable but sometimes in the way.

2

There is no default layout unless you lock the layout immediately and/or deselect “Automatically resolve collisions…” in Layout Options > Vertical Spacing. Dorico calculates the layout on the fly considering all changes to avoid collisions.

There is a Harp Pedal Settings entry in menu Library > Paragraph Styles

In menu View > Signposts you can show and hide signposts (even select a custom signpost set). I highly recommend to create a keyboard shortcut to toggle the visibility of signposts.

3

In Setup mode one can create a new part layout (without destroying the old one), and then check the appropriate flows and Player(s) desired. That should create a new layout with with Dorico default options selected.

1 Like
4

Go into Setup mode. On the right side, delete the harp layout. In the Setup menu, Create Default Layouts.
In Library->Paragraph styles there is a harp pedal settings style.
I think the “tokens” you refer to are the Signposts. At the top of the screen is an eye icon. Click on it to de-select all signposts. You can also go to the View Menu->Signposts option and de-select the specific signposts you don’t want to see. (If you run into issues down the road, turn the signposts back on as seeing them can often help figure out a problem).

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5

Yes, but it might not change anything if the added harp pedals require more vertical space.

6

I was just answering the OP’s original question:

“Is there a command to cause Dorico to pass through a score and regenerate the default layout for a given part?”