Key combination for 'print'?

AFAICS, Dorico is the only program I use which doesn’t use Cmd-P to print; instead, pressing this key combination enters print mode and the only way to call up the MacOS print dialog is to click on ‘Print…’ in the bottom left (or ‘Print’ in the bottom right to avoid the print dialog altogether). Not really a big deal but I’d like to be able to make a macro for this but Keyboard Maestro is having trouble finding the button. Has anyone assigned a keystroke to Print?

Also, when making PDFs from scores and parts, I’m used to other programs entering the file name plus part name into the Save field of the file save dialog box. Dorico leaves ‘Untitled’ this field and I have to type in the name each time with the necessary changes for each part. Am I missing something?

The last part of your post seems strange to me : when I export PDF (using graphic export inside Dorico), the file name I have is the name of the file + layout name + .pdf
Are you using another tool to produce your PDFs ?

No. I use the MacOS print dialog and choose Save As PDF from there. For some reason it doesn’t fill that in, but that may be a problem with this particular file. I’ll experiment further.

P.S. Do you have a print macro?

Dear Vaughan,
I admit I rarely print my Dorico outputs… I export graphics all the time. Using the function inside Dorico, without any problem. Why don’t you ?

The advantage of using the Export as Graphic>PDF straight from within Dorico is that the resulting PDF will print at 100%. If I let macOS produce the PDF I will have to open and resave it, otherwise I will get a 96% output at my printer. It seems the white borders are interpreted correctly if Dorico does the output.
I might be the only person having these specific PDF quirks though…

Yes, I’ve reported that as a bug to Daniel, and a fix is expected. As mentioned, if you use the Graphics Export from Dorico, then you get PDFs correctly named as “Filename Layout.pdf”. Furthermore, Dorico’s graphics export remembers the save location per document.

If you’re making a PDF, then Dorico’s native output is as good (if not better) than MacOS’s native output. Unless you need special things, like PDF post-processing through MacOS PDF Services, I would, and indeed do, use Dorico’s graphics export.

Bear in mind that in other notation apps, I favour MacOS’s PDF creation over their native Graphics Export. :wink:

That’s certainly a setting in your default print presets. You can save a new print preset with 100% scaling and make it the default for your printer. There’s a funny balance in MacOS between the printer settings and PDF creation, the latter supposedly being device independent.

Dear Ben,
as a long time Mac user I would love to know how to make and save a print preset at 100%. Can you please give me a small hint how to do this?

The settings may vary, depending on your print driver. Go through all the different settings in each of the drop-down list: Page Attributes, Layout, Paper Handling, etc.
Alternatively, you could try Adding a new “Printer” from System Prefs to be a Generic Print queue, which you would select as your printer before you Save As PDF.
Some Printer drivers affect the PDF, in ways such as colorspace, paper size and scaling, etc, etc.

thanks Ben, I will give it a try :slight_smile:

Thanks everyone for the help. Interestingly, I have the same situation as KB: my MacOS PDF is also smaller than the one produced by graphics export within Dorico. I was wondering why the margins were larger than I’d set them in the document. Also, the PDF produced by Dorico’s export function is smaller than the one produced by the MacOS.
Just to get this straight, though. You’re referring to the panels on the right in print mode, starting with ‘Destination’, aren’t you? There I have to select PDF and click on Export at the bottom. This produces a file in the Destination folder but doesn’t give me any opportunity to change the file name if I need to (this is the opposite extreme to what I was complaining about before!). In any case, if I understand all this correctly, the fact remains that I have a bit of trackpad clicking to do before I can get a PDF, whereas I’m used to a single keypress.

Yes, there’ll be a scale factor or Fit to Page setting in your print driver somewhere.

I presume now you’re talking about file size?
For a sample document of mine, Dorico’s PDF is 314Kb. MacOS’s is 488Kb. Running it out as PostScript and Distilling gives me 526Kb. TBH, +/- a couple of 100 Kb has no bearing on my thinking. I’d have to run out 10,000 PDFs before this would be a noticeable fraction of my storage.

Yes, if you want a particular custom filename that’s different from Dorico’s convention, then you’ll need to rename afterwards. (Or possibly adjust the names of your layouts.) But once you’ve run out one PDF, then Dorico remembers the settings, so it’s just Command P, click Export.