In trying for an obscure workaround, I made a bar 1/8 time and hid the time signature. I tried to undo this by putting in 4/1 in the Shift-M popover and a 4/1 time signature appears, but somehow the bar is still in 1/8.
Iâve only had one coffee and canât do this in my head. Can you attach a project?
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Since I donât see a time signature signpost, turn signposts on, delete the hidden time signature. If that doesnât work, activate Insert mode then enter the 4/1 time signature.
The 3/1 TS blocks the âfull deploymentâ of the 4/1., which will be truncated. If you delete the 3/1, the 4/1 will be able to take over.
BTW, if you want a 1/8 pick-up in the middle of your piece (I suspect you wanted that after the ||), you can specify it directly. Assuming a subsequent metre of 4/1, a 1/8 pick-up is worth .125 of the beat, so youâd enter â4/1,0.125â in the Shift-M popover.
Missa Sine In Nomine a 3.dorico (1.9 MB)
Flow: Gloria, bar 40
Yes. Thanks. i realized that after I set up this zombie time signature.
I feel like your situation required the use of Insert Mode.
You wanted to go from a 1/8 meter to a 4/1 (adding lots of beats). You also wanted to keep the next bar 3/1. Is this all correct?
If you switch Insert Mode on, set to Global adjustment of current bar, when you enter 4/1 into the popover, all of those extra beats are added but the next bar should be left intact:
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I wanted 1/8 with hidden time (this was to make space for a text glyph to replace the time), then 3/1 in the next bar. The 4/1 is just me trying different things to get rid of the 1/8 hidden time. When I found out that I could not entirely hide the barline (why is an invisible barline not an option?), I realized that just adding an extra beat to the 3/1, making the first beat a color white rest and sticking the glyph there was better.
â⌠set to Global adjustment of current barâ.
I donât know what that means or where to set it.
Thereâs something odd about this project. I donât see any signposts anywhere in any flow or part and signposts are definitely on. I copied it into a new project and same thing, no signposts. If nothing else, shouldnât we at least see a signpost at the start of each flow specifying the key of the piece?
Each staff has a local key signature. In any case, you wouldnât find a signpost at the beginning of the flow unless it was an empty key signature (like C major).
In Dorico, to âhideâ a barline, you just select and delete it. Dorico will automatically change the meter of the new bar to account for all the beats. This will be confirmed by a signpost above the new bar.
If you want to get rid of the 4/1 bar entirely, just use the System Track to select and delete it.
In my screenshots, you will see the icon highlighted in the left zone. If it isnât selected, click and hold the icon to see the options.
Thanks. I do understand about deleting a barline The question was why is there no option for invisible bars (that does not try to âhelpâ by combining the two bars into one when you just want the barline to be invisible). It is in Finale, along with all the other barline options that Dorico does have: ticked bar, dotted bar, etc.
âIn my screenshots, you will see the icon highlighted in the left zone. If it isnât selected, click and hold the icon to see the options.â
Okay, I see the options and the text that labels them. And the manualâs search function (for once) explains what they are.
Whatever the weirdness of the missing signposts, turning on insert (voice) and putting in a new meter did it.
Thanks to all who responded to this.
Itâs warming my heart seeing other people here doing Early Music stuff, because I do also 
reverting proportionsâŚ
And I really loved the idea to cancel 1/4 by 4/1 â because that was the original way of reverting rhythmic proportions then, before they evolved into modern time signatures
Now, this seems offtopic, but I think it isnât: from an earlier post I take that your aim was to get some room for a mensuration sign (do I guess right?) Like this:
I assembled a short tutorial how to get these in a non fiddling way and posted it in the following post.
I am reproducing the beginning of the teneur from the piece I cited above. I want to use the tempus imperfectum/prolatio perf. mensuration, which is transcribed here as 6/8, so start with this:
Now go to to Lybrary > Music SymbolsâŚ
and from Category choose Time Signatures:
Look for the numerator you want to replace, in my case that is âTime Signature 6â, and delete it (garbage can icon):
Now from the menu to the right named Range âŚ
⌠choose the section about mensural prolations (yes the list is huge, some scrolling necessary):
Choose and Add Glyph that you want to replace the former number with, and OK:
Now the example looks like this:
The only thing left is to hide the denominator:
With this method you get a genuine time signature, with no âfalse measuresâ. Of course from now on you can use it everywhere in the piece, no need to recreate it every time.
The only possible caveat is: if there is another spot in the score where you would need to replace a different â6/Yâ time signature (for example 6/4) with this method, it would also appear as this mensuration sign. You would need to write that passage in another meter then to be able to use a different numerator.
I hope this helps! If this was not your use case, it might be useful for others.
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Thank you. Dorico should hire you to make tutorials!
Iâm available 
They should also hire @Christian_R for the same style of tutorials âŚ
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I do think too.
This kind of well-explained manipulation can save more than one user struggling for three nights with this type of highly specialised notation.
While weâre waiting for Herr Professor Meixnerâs tutorial 
, Iâve bookmarked it so you can find it quickly.
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Thanks for the flowers, @ObiwanKenobi ! 
Iâm not sure, what a general tutorial should include, but for specialized things like this - yes!
Generally I find this forum quite a good and searchable learning platform.
What an excellent way to show the incipit! That is really informative. I hope to see more scans of original sources in the future.