I am making significant strides absorbing Dorico, if I do say so myself. I’ve gone so far as to set up project templates that should help me along nicely. Got the ideas from a very helpful video by Julie Richardson.
So I started in creating a Piano and Vocal page template, with all the bells she had used: various tokens for Project, Flow, composer, lyricist, flow number, etc. Feeling pretty cocky. Then I redid that work for Full Score, and realized that (a) my layouts were a little “off”, since I was doing it manually and (b) this was going to be a tedious process. I created yet another layout (Piano, Vocal, Rhythm) and started looking for a way to use existing templates.
Which brings me to my problem. I tried a couple of procedures that I found in the documentation:
Select the new layout, go into Layout Options, chose one of my custom page templates. Sometimes the Apply button was enabled, sometimes not. In either case, nothing changed.
The other procedure was go to Engrave mode, and importing the custom template. Even worse: things like the Flow Name disappeared. Ctrl-Z got me back to ground zero, but I’m still at sea on how to apply existing templates. In my case, I’d like to apply Default Full Score (which has my changes) to everything else, but Dorico is not cooperating with me.
Any suggestions?
I think I’ve been cleared to attach files, but I see no mechanism for doing so, or I would send my custom project template.
These videos are 6 years old and refer to master pages, which are NOT in the Engraving mode. Instead, we are presented with Page Templates and Page Template Sets.
To apply a Dorico page template to a new layout, follow these steps:
Open your project in Engrave mode.
Choose a layout that you want to apply the page template to.
In the Pages panel, click Import Page Template in the Page Templates action bar.
Select the page template set that contains the page template you want to import.
Choose the specific page template you want to import from the list.
Click OK to import the selected page template.
The imported page template will now be available in all layouts using that page template set. Keep in mind that any subsequent changes you make to the page template won’t automatically affect other page template sets. [If you’ve customized a title page template for your full score and want to use it in part layouts, this process allows you to do so]
I notice looking at your posted file that page 1 contains an override (red triangle in the page avatar in the right column). That will block any Page Templates from taking effect.
Layout options or the pull-down menu in the right column of Engrave mode will allow you to choose between template sets shown at the bottom of that column (when expanded).
Right-clicking on a page avatar in Engrave will let you reassign a template to any page.
Beyond that, I am not sure what you are trying to do, so there is little advice I can offer.
Hmm. When I “Remove all overrides” on my version of Full Score, it reverted to the out of the box default. Ie, lost all my changes. NOT what I wanted.
It seems the overide triangle is ONLY on the page templates I have altered. I’m not trying to change them, they’re done. The templates I want to apply templates to are not thusly marked.
Furthermore, in Engrave mode, when I right mouse click over, say, Page 1 of my Piano, Vocals and Rhythm page, I am presented with 4 menu items. Insert Page Template, which I would have assumed is what you meant I should select by “Right-clicking on a page avatar in Engrave will let you reassign a template to any page” offers no option for applying one of my templates. In fact, it only offers “Default” and “First” in the dropdown.
Alternatively, when displaying the Piano, Vocals and Rhythm layout, and opening Layout Options, I can select Full Score all day, but nothing changes.
And thus I am no closer to solving the dilemma.
I realize how frustrating it is to deal with a novice. For many years, I had to explain complicated programming procedures and constraints to novices. Being in possession of years of hard-earned knowledge makes it easy to overlook how unobvious things can be to the Noob. I am sorry for my lack of comprehension, but I am very eager to gain some modicum of proficiency with Dorico. It is evident that it is light years ahead of Sibelius, once I become comfortable. Thanks again for your help.
I think what might have happened is a slight misunderstanding of what a page template is:
When you edit a page directly (like looking at your Piano layout, and making changes to the first page in that layout, where you can still see all the music) – that’s a page template override. You’re only changing that specific page, you’re not touching the underlying page template.
When you double-click a page template in the right panel and open the page template editor, where you can see frames but no music, that’s editing a page template. The changes you make in the page template editor get saved to the page template, and affect all pages in all layouts that use that template.
For example, opening up the parts First page template and changing it means the first page in all part layouts will change.
It’s not currently possible in Dorico to edit a page locally, then “promote” those local edits into becoming a page template (ie saving your overrides as a page template). However, this has been requested before is on our radar for possible future implementation.
You might also benefit from watching this YouTube playlist (the terminology has changed, so wherever Ant says “master page”, that’s now “page template” – but the fundamentals are all still the same)
I think the confusion might be that you are editing the page instead of the template.
In Engrave mode go to the right panel and double click the default page template.
Edit the tokens there to flow title and the project date.
Be sure to do right to left arrow at top.
Save it (which you’ll be asked to do when you return to write mode)
Edit: Lillie beat me to it and has a much more detailed explanation . It’s already late afternoon where she is but her devotion to helping us out knows no clock.
IIRC there is a pull-down menu above the First/Default options; that will give you access to the other Template Sets you have loaded. To find one of your Page Templates, you need to select the Set that contains it.
Note that a given layout can only select templates from a single set, which is why the ability to import layouts from one loaded set into another was a great addition to recent versions of the program.
Boom! As the song says, “I’m beginning to see the light…”
This is the single most elucidating response I’ve had. I believe others are very well-meaning, but failed to realize that I had started out from a mistaken genesis.
I am beginning now to edit using the actual template editor. Here’s a question: in general, I want the pages in a project flow to have the flow name at the top, not the project name. So changing ProjectTitle token to FlowTitle token should do that, yes?
Seems the best approach would be modify the Full Score layout/template the way I want it, then apply that to any others.
Thanks again. I’m just gonna scrap everything and retool.
You can do that. You can also duplicate the First template of the set you want to use and delete the title text field and replace it with an identical field containing the Flow Title rather than the Project Title.
The reason for deleting the field and replacing is that otherwise the two fields (in the First and in the Duplicate) will both change, as the fields are linked.
One can note down the original anchors (in the upper left column) and the text field dimensions (in the properties panel) to replicate the Title text field exactly, although I usually indent the centered text boxes 10mm on each side to let me access text boxes on the left and right more easily.
Whether you alter the First page template or the duplicate depends which one you will use more often and which you want to appear automatically at the start of each new flow.
I guess you are creating a multi-flow document and that is why you do not simply name the project with the title for the flow.
) The Silence