Titles - entering and editing

Hi, good people. I’ve searched extensively in the documentation and forum, and haven’t found a solution yet.
I’m using Elements 2.2, so I don’t have Engrave mode.

  1. The Project Title appears at the top of the first page in the template. I can change it to insert my own title, and change the fonts, etc. Then later, if I want to edit the title, I can’t find a way. I double-click on the title in Write mode, make changes, but when I exit that area of the page, the old title pops back. Pressing Enter after editing just adds another line, of course. How can I edit the Project Title and make it stick? Or even, delete it entirely?

  2. The Flow Title appears underneath the Project Title in the template. But this project consists of one flow only, so I don’t need a flow title AND a project title. One of them is superfluous. I found how to change the Flow Title in Setup Mode, using the panel at the bottom. So, I can delete the flow title completely, BUT, the figure “1.” remains, hanging in the air with nothing attached. How can I get rid of the Flow Number completely?

  3. There’s a large empty space between the Project Title and the Flow Title. Can I tighten this up somehow?

Thanks for any help, much appreciated.

  1. Project Info. It’s in the File menu.
  2. Go into Layout Options > Page Setup > Flows and set “Show flow headings” to whatever you want. You can use this to hide the flow heading above your flow (leaving just the main title in place).
  3. See 2. Also, you can do this on a page by page basis by going into Engrave mode, selecting the frames button from the far left panel (I think it’s the second icon down), and then dragging the frames as you wish. Or you can do it globally by double-clicking on the “First” or “Default” master pages in the Master Page section of the right panel. Then drag the frames to suit. Then remember to copy left>right (using the button at the top of the Master Page Editor). Then hit Apply and close.

Thanks pianoleo. However:

  1. I tried File > Project Info. There’s nothing about the Project Title here. Changing the Title field changes the Flow Title, so, that is another way to change the Flow Title, but not the Project Title. (Why would it change the title of Flow 1, if this is “project info”?) [And incidentally, if I enter more info here under Subtitle, Composer, etc, it doesn’t appear anywhere in the score.]

  2. I tried Layout Options on a new template, and yes, it works. But it doesn’t work in the project I’ve been working on for several days. If I select Never or First flow only, the music jumps up higher, as if there was no Flow Title. But the flow heading still shows! I could scarcely believe this, so I rebooted Dorico just to make sure. No, no changes at all for those Layout Options in my working project. What could be going on here?

  3. Flow heading bottom margin works as expected, thanks. Flow heading top margin doesn’t make any changes at all. This happens, both on a new template, and in my working project.

  1. Check the dropdown in a Project Info. You’re editing the flow, not the project.

Thanks Dan.

  1. Mmmm, it appears I initially changed the text of the title by clicking on it, and erasing {@projectTitle@}. After all, that’s the most intuitive thing to do - see a piece of text, and click on it to make changes, yes? And now that I’ve done that, it seems I can’t reverse it! Changes just don’t stick. So, I opened a new project, same voice/pno template, and copied all my work over in one hit, great. Now I can edit the words of the title in Project Info. Back to Write mode, I can click on the title and change the font size, but nothing else. I can’t change the font, or bold characteristics, for example. Or to be clear, I appear to be making changes, but they don’t stick when I move on to something else.

  2. As above, even with my new Project after copying my work across, I still cannot hide the Flow Title in Layout Options. And…

  3. Flow Heading Top Margin still doesn’t work.

John.

Dear jgg,
It appears you could benefit from viewing Anthony Hughes’ videos about masterpages. Tokens (like {@FlowTitle@}) should not be removed from your project if you want Dorico to do its automated tasks… Granted, this is not intuitive, and I think it is impossible to “know” how to use it if you have not been taught.

You can edit the apparence of all those tokens in the masterpages, in order to gain consistency through all your document. I strongly advise not to edit those things in the document itself (I mean in Engrave mode, page view) unless you really know what you are doing :wink:
Hope it helps

[Edit] : As Daniel points out, masterpages are available in Dorico Pro, not Elements. Apologies for my mistake!

Marc, John is using Dorico Elements, which doesn’t allow any editing of master pages.

John, I’m sorry to say that you have uncovered a bug in Dorico Elements! You can edit the text in a frame once, but when you try to edit it again, the edit will fail. I’m very sorry for the inconvenience caused, and we will fix this problem at our earliest opportunity.

To remove the flow title, you should switch off the layout option to show flow headings before you change the title in the text frame: when you change the title in the text frame directly, you are causing the page to be overridden, but of course you can’t see or change that override in Write mode: that would require Engrave mode. I need to think about what would be a good solution to this in future.

Thanks Marc, and thanks for that response, Daniel, and for thinking more about it - along with all those other little things that you’re thinking about!

So, as i understand it, you’re talking about the issue of not being able to edit Titles a second time, in Elements. Along with not being able to hide Flow titles after they’ve been edited.

While we’re talking about Front Matters, it seems that when you add info to the Project Info page (Project tab), the only things that appear in Elements are Title, Composer, Lyricist, and Copyright. Is that correct? I fully understand that most of the other things are designed for an entire Front Page scenario before the music starts, and that that won’t happen in Elements. But it would be nice to have a few more than those bare-bones things, Sub-title for example, and have some basic (non-Pro) control over how they look and where they appear.

Sorry about extending the discussion a little, but these things are very much related, to me. Because it seems that the only other way to add Front Matter text currently is to tie the text to a note or staff element, which works, but obviously can be problematic.

Thanks for your great work!

John.

Was having the same issue in Elements glad to find this post :slight_smile:

Any insight as to when an update will be available to resolve?

Thanks all

bt

Joining in with this - ELEMENTS version (some replies ignore that important fact!)

So having entered Title and Composer / Lyricist in Project Info - I find I have to manually type “composer” before the name in ProInfo as it doesn’t automatically say composer or lyricist in the score, just the name shows up. How do I make it show?

Also, can I make the Project Title appear at the top of each flow? For a musical songbook for example I’d like the title of the musical (entered as Project Title in Pro Info) at the start of each flow, as well as the flow name (edited in setup to reflect song title) beneath it. Is this possible?

Finally, naming the Flow titles by song works, but must they be numbered? As in 1. Song Title 2. Song Title etc? I can see if I double click on the Flow title the token beneath it, and could delete the number part, BUT, from earlier posts about layout etc it appears one is not supposed to edit tokens in this way, but off there’s no other way…Master Page doesn’t allow it as far as I can see

If you are scoring a songbook (particularly of a musical) you are probably more in Dorico Pro territory than that of Elements except to do a fairly rudimentary job. That will require you to make compromises and use workarounds where possible.

Thanks Derek - my workload may be in Pro territory, but my Bank balance is most definitely elemental!

Compromises and workarounds then until that call from Broadway comes…

You definitely are in Pro territory here. I recognise you may not be in a position to pay the full price, but are you eligible for a crossgrade discount from Sibelius or Finale?

A work round would be to use Pro (even the trial version) to make an empty score with the master pages and layout options you want, and then start your projects from a copy of that.

The “simple way” to do all your requests is edit the Master Pages. As you discovered in another thread, editing the headings on individual pages will cause problems if the number of pages in the score changes.

Thanks for all your suggestions folks.

I had Sibelius years ago - at least ten or more years - but cannot find anything to substantiate this so I’m not able to cross grade, and I was Head of Music at a College in the UK for ten years whilst working towards my PhD in Composition - but having left that in 2008 I don’t have a post to use for educational discount either! I teach privately from time to time but I think one needs an official stamp of some sort to qualify for Ed discount, ho hum - shoulda kept that Sibelius box and DVD (or was it several CDs?) - I’m still hoping it’s in a trunk in the attic somewhere!

Hi Daniel. Any news regarding this issue in Dorico Elements? I am asking because my trial period of DE is going to expire, and I would like to buy the program without this issue. Thank you! (I cannot afford buying Dorico Pro…)

There hasn’t been any change in this regard as yet, mchiapparini.

He said he doesn’t have Engrave mode

You’re absolutely right, and I unreservedly apologise for my error.
However, you’ve also dug up a thread that’s nearly three years old (and obviously quite out of date). It’s probably best not to pick up on my mistakes 35 months after the fact, especially in the few days after a new version (when the forum is particularly busy).

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Sorry - I was searching for info on controlling titles etc and I keep falling foul of answers that assume I have Engrave mode!