The curse of "US Letter" paper in the USA, and Dorico

dfroom, unless something’s changed in v1.2, if you’re exporting to PDF there’s no point fiddling with paper size settings in Print mode; those numbers are ignored. Only the settings in Layout Options are relevant.

I see now, thanks to the helpful Manual, that in the Print dialog, “Print final page on…” applies only in special printing situations and I don’t need to worry about it. Great.

But it’s still true that, for me at least, “Statement” rather than “US Letter” seems to be the default paper size in any new project I create. (I do have “US Letter” set in Layout Options). Is this a problem others are having? and if so, is it considered an error, to be corrected in the future?

You find “Statement” to be the default paper size chosen under Page Setup in Print mode, rather than the default page size chosen in Layout Options? What kind of printer do you have?

(Yes, that’s exactly the case.) My printer is an HP Officejet Pro 8100.

I wonder whether Dorico thinks, according to your system locale settings, that it should choose A4 paper, but it can’t choose it, and it’s ending up choosing Statement instead? Can you try forcing Dorico to use US paper sizes by setting ‘Default paper size type’ to ‘North American’ in Preferences?

Default paper size type was already set to North American.

(And in fact, though I know you know this already, “Statement” is exclusively a North American size, being exactly half a US letter-size sheet. I used to see such paper occasionally for short office memos and that sort of thing, but I never knew it had a name before Dorico.)

If you want inexpensive A4 paper in the USA, buy a ream of legal size, 8.5 x 14, and get it trimmed to A4 somewhere where they have a guillotine that will cut through 500 sheets at a time!

David

Rinaldo, for the time being I’m stumped by this problem. Does it choose this default for any layout size? E.g. are all of your layouts landscape, or anything else unusual that could explain why Dorico behaves differently for you?

None of my layouts are Landscape.

Also, I see Statement come up for the ready-made sample scores that I didn’t create. For instance, “Clocks” is set in Layout Options to A4, “DORICOverture” to Custom, yet they, like my own US Letter projects, show Statement when I look at Print options.

Thanks for taking the time to think about this!

Later added: So, Daniel’s last response leads me to think that I’m the only one experiencing “Statement” as a printing default? I had thought it was more widespread, but apparently not.

Check this out - All score and parts documents are set to US LETTER sized paper in SETUP

In the PRINT menu:

It appears to me that Dorico’s PAGE SETUP size automatically selects the first page size listed in the printer’s “available paper sizes” list – NOT the default paper size. If I change from my local Brother HL-series printer to a networked [Ricoh] printer, the PAGE SETUP sizes changes to 12"x18" (the first size in its list). If I change back to my local Brother printer, the PAGE SETUP size changes to A4 (the first in ITS paper list). Both printers have a default page size of US LETTER.

If I change the paper to US LETTER (which is what I use, and the default of the printer), it will stay until I change printers… and the above process is repeated.

If I select a predefined printer profile of 11"x17" for the networked Ricoh (which is what I needed to do to trick Sibelius into proper booklet printing), the PAGE SETUP size reverts to 12"x18" (the first size in its paper sizes list). Changing the printer back to the local Brother printer of course reverts PAGE SETUP to A4.

Would it be possible for the default paper size in PAGE SETUP to at least be the same as what the printer default size is? (Mind you, this is all in the PRINT menu – not Layout Setup).

Has anybody else been able to verify the anomaly [mentioned in my post above] that happens when changing printers (US paper sizes)? This is quite annoying – I have to double-check (and change) every print job every time I switch printers. For every part. And every score. Any chance for a fix to this, Daniel?

So I experience something a little similar.

I always use US Letter, since that is really all I have. When I create a new document, Dorico defaults to Page Setup being US Letter. However, when I go to Print Mode… The starting Paper size is not US Letter, it is the 1st size listed in my printers available default paper sizes. I only have 1 printer, so I am switching between multiple printers, so I cannot verify that. But once I set the page size in Print Mode to US Letter, it does save and retain that. But I believe I have to do that for each and every part as well.



Robby

What happens if you multi-select the layouts on the left side of Print mode? Can you update all the paper sizes at once?

(I’m in the UK and thus I’m not affected by US paper sizes)

Pianoleo, yes I can select all parts at once and update them. The paper size setting also seems to be retain after closing and re-opening the score. As soon as I change printers, the page size in the PRINT dialogue reverts to the first available paper size - but ONLY for the selected part. All unselected parts remain at their previous setting (letter size). Curious.

Studying this thread took me a long time (I’m new to Dorico), with added time trying to summarize the solutions given (for my own use).

Here’s what I came up with (below). If anyone stumbles upon this thread, and finds that my summary is inaccurate, please let me know! If it is accurate, perhaps it can save someone else some time. (BTW, I’m using Dorico 3.5.12)

The problem

Dorico’s default page size is A4. Because Letter has a different aspect ratio than A4, a Dorico layout will not properly fit a Letter page size, and will automatically be resized to fit. This resizing can lead to automatic reformatting (eg, more bars to systems, but fewer systems per page), which can create all kinds of real problems (eg, destroying planned page turns, etc).

Solution

  • Edit->Preferences ->General->Default paper size type: make this “North American”
  • Layout Options->Page Setup->Page Size: choose “letter”
    • For Full Score:
      ->Layouts (right panel)-> select “Full Score”
      ->Layout Type (lower left corner) → select “Full Score”
      ->Save as Default
    • For Parts:
      ->Layouts (right panel)->select a part
      ->Layout Type (lower left corner) ->select “Part”
      ->Save as Default

These two steps (above) will (probably) make any future project’s score and parts default to “letter” rather than A4.

  • Print: Unfortunately, the above has no bearing on what Dorico chooses for the actual Print page. Here:
    • Print->right panel->Page Setup->”Letter”

As far as I know, this cannot be set to a default, but must be done this way for every print job.

  • Graphics/PDF: Printing to PDF will automatically follow the Layout Options defaults, as above.
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I tend to assume that discussions from 3 years ago are going to be fairly irrelevant.

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. . . as a beginner to Dorico, I’m in no position to know that. Were these older posts ‘tended to’ in some way, beginners like me could be informed of their relative irrelevance, and directed to what has since become the newer reality.

My page (here in the U.S.) defaults to Letter, so I don’t know what you are talking about.

I’m using 3.5.12, and --with no previous interventions/overrides on my part – mine defaults to “A4”.
However, after spending several hours studying this old post – and “gluing” together some of the informative replies it contains – I was able to learn how to change the default to “letter”.

What printer do you have plugged into your computer?