In this post, I will show how to create the following page:
If you try to create this page using a page template with two music frames side by side, it doesn’t work correctly. All the flows are displayed, but the flow headings in the second column duplicate those in the first column. One possible workaround is to put each column in a separate page with half the width and merge those pages side by side into a single page. But how can you display a project title that spans both columns?
This is where a little Black Magic is needed. In posts 9 and 11 of this topic, I demonstrate that if a frame has all four Constraint padlocks on and the left/right or top/bottom borders are reversed, then the frame can extend beyond the page margins. To get the project title to span both columns, the right-hand page in the page template for the first half page has a text frame with the left/right borders reversed so the right half of the frame is off the page, and the left-hand page in the page template for the second half page has a text frame with the left/right borders reversed so the left half of the frame is off the page.
Before switching to print mode in Dorico, be sure that the page arrangement option in the status bar is set to Single Pages Vertically. Then select Graphics in the right zone of print mode and export a PDF of the half pages. There are many methods to merge these pages side by side into a single page, but I used a free online method:
-
Click on Select File. Select the PDF file exported from Dorico and click Open.
-
Click on Stitch Two pages to One page Horizontal and click on Split Line to uncheck that option. Then click on Merge pages.
-
Click on Open File to view the merged page or Download File to copy it to your computer.
The following project has two layouts, one called Full page which uses the Default page template and demonstrates that putting two music frames side by side on the same page doesn’t work correctly, and the other called Half pages which uses the First page template for both pages:
Twelve Major Scales.dorico (1.4 MB)
Here is the merged PDF file:
Twelve Major Scales.pdf (21.9 KB)
Note that this workaround will cause difficulty if page numbers are used. Since every column is on a separate half page, each merged page uses two page numbers.
