System and Staff Spacing and Custom Page Template Sets

Dorico
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I am a fairly new user of Dorico Pro 6 (on a Windows 11 machine). I am coming from 30 years of using Encore, so there’s a lot to learn. I have read most of the Dorico Pro 6 Operation Manual (skimmed some things I may not use), and I have read a number of Forum posts and watched a number of YouTube videos. There’s a lot to remember, and some items don’t get a lot of explanation.

I produce sheet music and do not currently need to make recordings with Dorico other than demos for the choir.

One thing I’m trying to understand is custom page template sets. I have a number of page formats I have used for a long time and want to come as close to duplicating as possible in Dorico. I have been able to develop several page template sets but have a few questions.

Are template sets just stored as part of a Dorico project file? I don’t find a specific way to save changes to templates. I can export a template set so that I can import it into another project, but if I make a change to a template and save the project, it doesn’t affect another project.

A page template doesn’t actually contain any measures, correct? I can save a Project Template with existing flows and project data so that I can start another project as closely as possible to a “standard” project. My challenge is that I don’t see how to specify exactly where I want systems/staves to be so that if Dorico adds a system or a new page (using the default page template), the systems and staves are where I want them. I can define a project with lots of duplicate pages (by adding, say, 300 measures), propagating page formatting information from one page to many others (like a 5-page chord chart or a 15-page, 2-staff choir chart), but if for some reason I have to add a system or a page, Dorico doesn’t duplicate the layout from the previous system or page. If I finish a chart and delete all the extra measures, and then later have to add more measures and a system and/or a page is thus added, Dorico doesn’t remember the specifics of the deleted systems/pages. I have set “fixed number of bars per system” and “fixed number of systems per frame” in the Layout Options/Staves and Systems/Casting Off section. The program uses these values in setting up added systems and pages, but anything I have set in Engrave Mode using “Staff Spacing” isn’t used.

I am using “Project Info”, saving defaults, using (some) font styles and paragraph styles, and exporting/importing/comparing libraries to share formatting between project types and avoid page overrides as much as possible.

Obviously, I’m trying to force Dorico to set things up my way instead of using whatever its defaults are so that my charts and individual pages within a chart have a uniformity and resemble closely charts my fellow workers and I have made in the past. I may not be explaining this correctly, may not know what Dorico does in each case, but I’m trying to get a handle on this so that I can start my projects from known formats. I’d prefer not to have to start from a project template with more pages than I need. I can propagate spacing to added staves and pages, but again I’d prefer not to. Among other things, it expands the number of things I need to teach someone else if he is going to use my templates and carry on our style.

One other thing, I don’t seem to be able to delete the “Default Full Score” and “Default Part” page template sets from my projects. Is that not allowed?

Dorico is very deep, but it has longevity, so we should never need to look for a replacement in the future, and Dorico with Cantai is an awesome combo for demos for the choir.

Thanks for your help.

Geoffrey

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Welcome to the forum @Geoffrey .

Page templates are blueprints for the page layout beyond the music (frame), for example the appearance and position of title, composer, page numbers, copyright.

This is a video which covers all aspects of page templates.

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IIRC One has to save another custom set as the Default; one cannot erase them.

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Thank you, @Vadian and @Derrek, for your quick and helpful responses!

I had seen something in a post about saving on top of a default page template set but didn’t get that the page template set was otherwise not deletable.

I think I get the page organization aspect of page templates. I have a specific set of fields (i.e., the content of a text frame) I’d like on each page at specific locations. A lot of these fields are populated with tokens so that the Project Info page fills them and I don’t edit those fields, thus not having a page override. Some of those fields are in the same place on every page, and in the same places on two different kinds of charts — chord charts and choir charts. Since I don’t like page numbers on a one-page chart, I’ll just override and change to white text on such pages and therefore not change spacing.

The music frame is my challenge. I have placed it where it won’t interfere with my text frames, and I have it at the same place on the first page template and the default page template for uniformity. I’d just like to find a way to establish the location of the first system (distance from the top of the music frame), the distance between staves in a two- (or more-) staff system, and the distance between systems. I have set minimum gaps, fixed numbers of systems per page and bars per system, and I have set vertical justification percentages to 100 to help control respacing, but new systems on a page and new pages seem to be out of my control.

I get Steinberg/Dorico’s desire to use rules to define how the software formats systems and pages. I have read Behind Bars and some other notation books and understand some of the “best” practices they describe, but as the “engraver” the choice is ultimately up to me and the musicians I produce charts for. In a songbook (in my context that means a hymnal with only a melody line and lyrics) for example, space is at a premium and placement and similarity page-to-page make (to me) for an elegant work. The main thing I need to be automatic is horizontal spacing, but even there I need to be able to override based on “taste”.

I can always propagate part formatting to accomplish this. I’d just prefer an option to make it automatic.

I am wordy. I don’t know where that falls in forum etiquette. Thanks for your help, and thanks again, @Vadian and @Derrek.

Geoffrey

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I tend to add templates to my default sets whenever I find a layout I might use multiple times. In addition, I may add additional laayout templates for specific projects.

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@Derrek, Thanks for the suggestion. It’s neat to see how different people use the capabilities. I watched the video @Vadian suggested (“Create a Title Page”), which covers a lot more than just what the title suggests, and there are good things to add to my repertoire of page template ideas.

I have built a page template set for each of my types of charts. Maybe it would be good to combine them into one page template set. Too soon to tell. I’m still trying to decide among all the options how I want to set each one for each type of chart. As I google things I find a new option I’ve read about but haven’t remembered to try. Very deep program. That’s the value of templates — figure out how you want things to go, make a template, and not have to set all the options and formats over and over.

Thanks again.

Geoffrey

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I figured out how to do what I was trying to accomplish. I had a template in Encore that had 10 staves on a page, 6 bars per staff, laid out evenly (for chord charts). I have been trying to produce the same thing in Dorico using a page template set and/or project template. When I added enough bars to cause a new system and maybe a new page to be added, the vertical spacing wasn’t the same as what I had painstakingly laid out. My solution has been to figure out how far I needed the top of the first system to be from the top of the music frame (I used the ruler in Engrave Mode, Staff Spacing to figure that value out) and how far I needed the bottom of the tenth system to be from the bottom of the music frame. I made sure that all the staff spacing handles were blue (red means there’s an override, so I deleted any vertical spacing overrides). Then in Layout Options, Music Frame Margins, I set those values in the Top and Bottom fields. I had already set the number of bars per system and number of systems per page in Layout Options, Staves and Systems, Casting Off. I also set the justify percentages to 100% in Layout Options, Vertical Spacing, Vertical Justification so Dorico wouldn’t automatically respace my chart vertically.

I know I am trying to defeat some of the elegance Dorico is trying to introduce. I have read Behind Bars and understand how strict uniformity could be considered undesirable. On the other hand, I’ve been using this Encore template for around thirty years and never had a problem reading charts made with it, nor have the members of the bands for whom I made charts with the template.

Part of the joy of finding solutions is knowing that I can ultimately accomplish probably anything I want in Dorico and knowing that Dorico has been the right choice (for me and my employer) to replace Encore.

Geoffrey