I am aware that at the moment there is no way to officially import any settings or library from one project to another but is there notwithstanding an hidden hack (through some XML file editing) to import at least Paragraph Styles?
I could use this because after finishing the engraving of a complete musical I changed my mind and I finally want to change all the paragraph styles I used.
I did this already for one song and now that the organization and the settings of the paragraph styles are almost perfect I would like to do this for the other 20 songs.
But due to the fact that I did not worked 100% systematically from the beginning, the organization and the settings of the previous paragraph are not so easy to edit, it is not a matter of simply change some fonts here and there and it is better to recreate all paragraph styles for all remaining 20 songs.
Of course it is doable but if there was a way to import the paragraph styles it would be great.
Unfortunately importing the flows of the finished songs into a template containing all the needed paragraph styles does not work because all the other layout work is then gone.
BTW I do hope that Dorico soon offers the possibility to export and import all kind of settings between projects.
If you save your Styles as the Default, then they will be in all new documents. But I donāt think you can load in the defaults to a document that has different settings. (I could be wrong: most of my docs are configured the same.)
Thanks a lot benwiggy for reminding me of this feature.
I tried it and this feature does exactly what I was looking for!
Saving a paragraph style as default does not only make this paragraphaph style available for a new project but also for existing projects.
Itās great and my problem is now solved
You have to take care to do this for each paragraph style you need.
So there is no need for an hidden way, Dorico offers this functionality.
For anyoone interested here is a summary:
If you need to import a custom Paragraph Style in an existing project, create a Paragraph Style and choose the option āSave as Defaultā, this Paragraph Style will be then available for new and existing projects
Iām trying to follow this method and I must be doing something wrong.
In project A I have created 3 styles S1-S3. I already have a project B (i.e. I will not be creating a new project at this point) in which I would like to use the three styles. I open project A, go to Engrave ā Paragraph Styles, choose S1, press āsave as defaultā, press āOKā, [* (see below)], and then do the same for S2 and S3. I then close A and open B. However, S1-S3 are not in the Paragraph Styles list. What should I do?
As for [*]: if I choose S1 and press āsave as defaultā, it is not set as default even for the use in project A. That is, when I create a new text expression, it is at the beginning set with the āDefault Textā paragraph style, not in S1. I have, then, no idea what āsave as defaultā does: the literal interpretation of the name is wrongā¦
Did you shut down Dorico between closing Project A and opening Project B? As far as I remember, the āSave as defaultā edit is applied to the userlibrary.xml file, which is only read once on start-up (and actually also only written to on closing down).
The saved styles will only be available in new documents. They wonāt apply to all your existing documents, which, for example, could contain styles of the same name with different values.
āSave As Defaultā makes that Paragraph Style available in new documents. It does not set the āDefault Textā Paragraph Style. You can save Lots of extra Paragraph Styles into your defaults ā but they canāt all be the Default Text style!
Alright, thank you very much for the clarification!
However, Iām afraid to say that my styles S1-S3 are not available in new projects. (I have shut down and restarted Dorico.) Do you know what the problem might be?
I believe thereās a little corner where for Save as Default to stick, there has to have been a change to the paragraph style (so it gets the little asterisk that indicates amendments to the base).
On my system it is still working as I described it.
I just made a quick test and new paragraph styles are available in new project as well as in existing projects.
Is it really the way it works on your system?
I just made a test and after creating a new paragraph style and saving it as default it appears also in existing documents.
I used this feature quite a lot.
Iām not in front of a computer right now, but at the top right corner of Paragraph Styles thereās a āparentā or a ābased onā dropdown. Are your S1-S3 paragraph styles dependent on another paragraph style thatās not saved as default?
If so, Iām guessing youād need to save the parent font style as default first.
