How do I remove a page in the middle of a score?

I was thinking “how can Dorico currently handle this better than Sibelius?”

In Sibelius it’s basically separate files for each number with a fudge (floating title/composer, bar number reset halfway down the page) when you need a new number/movement/song on an existing page. The pain is that if material is added or removed you have to do a lot of page number changes.

Dorico DOES still require a workaround, which I think is this: keep everything in one project but split the full score into as many layouts as necessary. If there’s a need for a new flow to start halfway down page 25, for example, then as much before that (say pages 1-24) goes into one layout, all set to start flows on new pages. Then page 25 is a separate layout with flows starting on existing pages. Etc.

Guys, while reading this thread the only thoughts that come to my mind are “why is this so complicated?” and “why are we talking workarounds?”

To me, one of the great strengths of this software is that the programming team is doing things properly to begin with—no taking shortcuts in the programming or in the “how do we achieve ___?” Everything is very well-thought and makes sense from the start, and I for one greatly appreciate this!

But the problem here are the overrides and master page changes, of course. The whole implementation of Dorico’s page layout scheme à la Adobe InDesign makes sense, but perhaps we need to come up with a better way to handle master pages and how they are applied? In Adobe the master page moves with the page itself, and I would have expected that to be true of Dorico too—but apparently not? I’ll give my +1 for changing this…

Also, I never understood why flow titles, subtitles, dedication, lyricist, composer, arranger, and orchestrator text could not simply be integrated as part of a flow—not as first-measure items like Sibullyus, but simply anchored to the beginning of the flow under the hood so it prints above the first line (with proper controls for spacing, &c) on its own, without the need of text frames. This would allow the flows to, well, flow! within a single music frame on a page, making it simpler to achieve a great printable outcome without page overrides and template changes and what not.

Of course, the option would still be there to start new flows on new pages and would still work.

Any thoughts from the Steinberg team?

Cheers —π

+1

“Complete pieces of music” is only one use case for flows. For example in Dorico, this page would have two flows on it, one of them displayed twice in separate frames. http://www.henle.de/blog/en/files/2013/01/Beethoven_Sonata_21_Opus_53_Seite_1.jpg

Dorico has got it right IMO. integrating “heading” text as part of the flow is the wrong logical place for it. If you wanted to integrate it anywhere, the layout would be a better idea (but still a bad idea).

You might need to display the text anywhere in the score in any format you want, perhaps multiple times (e.g. in a table of contents, an index of themes, etc), or maybe not display it at all.

There is a balance between ‘doing things properly’ and maintaining flexibility. When it comes to layout, Dorico’s superior flexibility makes certain things complicated, but what else would you expect from a pro application? For ‘simple’ use, I do believe a lot of the default settings gives most people an acceptable result without any tweaking. For ‘advanced’ use, the possibilities are endless as long as you learn the more complicated stuff.

In Adobe the master page moves with the page itself, and I would have expected that to be true of Dorico too—but apparently not?

As Daniel explained here, “The reason you don’t see these anomalies in Adobe InDesign is because InDesign never automatically crates pages in order to make sure that all of the content that might be lurking in any of the chains of text frames in your document actually appears, whereas Dorico has to do this automatically”

Also, I never understood why flow titles, subtitles, dedication, lyricist, composer, arranger, and orchestrator text could not simply be integrated as part of a flow—not as first-measure items like > Sibullyus> , but simply anchored to the beginning of the flow under the hood so it prints above the first line (with proper controls for spacing, &c) on its own, without the need of text frames. This would allow the flows to, well, flow! within a single music frame on a page, making it simpler to achieve a great printable outcome without page overrides and template changes and what not.

I think this simplification would diminish the flexibility of layout in Dorico. Flows ≠ movements - they can be used in many creative ways where you never would want a title. If you haven’t seen it yet, have a look at this tutorial, which demonstrates some of the layout possibilities using flows. Text frames are an important part of this flexibility. I think that having some text within the text frames, and some floating around without would give far less control over the result (I’m not talking about music text such as tempo, playing techniques and etc, which has to be linked directly to the music).

I have some ideas/questions regarding this topic:

  1. Would it be possible to make ‘Allow on existing page’/‘Always start new page’ a per-flow specific option? I think this would enhance the ‘automatic flexibility’. I imagine it accessible through right-clicking the flow in setup mode. This would of course have to be subordinate the layout setting.

  2. Is there a reason why ‘Swap with next page’ doesn’t apply to master page changes? I have found that selecting multiple pages and using this feature works great for tidying up page overrides when the music length changes, so I think this would be a very handy feature for master page changes as well.

I agree with what you are saying, but I am looking for possible ways to make something that is complicated today be less complicated in the future. I love Dorico’s flexibility, and being a long-time InDesign user, I felt at home right away with the Engrave tab, and the only real complaint I have about it is that it’s not enough like InDesign! :slight_smile: (I miss the mm sizing boxes, the smart guides, ability to copy+paste frames, &c.)

As Daniel explained > here> , “The reason you don’t see these anomalies in Adobe InDesign is because InDesign never automatically crates pages in order to make sure that all of the content that might be lurking in any of the chains of text frames in your document actually appears, whereas Dorico has to do this automatically”

I get it, but there has to be some smart way to handle this…

I think this simplification would diminish the flexibility of layout in Dorico. Flows ≠ movements - they can be used in many creative ways where you never would want a title. If you haven’t seen it yet, have a look at > this > tutorial, which demonstrates some of the layout possibilities using flows. Text frames are an important part of this flexibility. I think that having some text within the text frames, and some floating around without would give far less control over the result (I’m not talking about music text such as tempo, playing techniques and etc, which has to be linked directly to the music).

Correct, and I’m not advocating the removal of text frames—I think they are absolutely needed. But you could also have flow-attached text, and when you wanted to do something like the choral preces (which I had seen when Daniel first blogged about it) you would simply leave the title, composer, and other text blank (or “unattached” to that specific flow).

These are just ideas, of course… What matters most here is the dialogue and exchange of ideas! :wink:

As for your list:

  1. Agree with this, great idea!
  2. Perhaps a better implementation of this could solve the issue that originated this thread?

'Fraid I’ve just spotted another downside to adding/removing pages from the middle of layouts:
Any following pages with overrides are effectively locked, so an overridden page based on a “left” master page will keep its page number in the left corner even if the page number changes from 50 to 49 (for example).

Again, I can’t off the top of my head think of any situations in which a user would want Dorico to behave like this, but it’s the way it’s designed.

This shouldn’t happen if you’ve set up your master pages properly: each master page is a pair of pages, left and right, and when you end up with a particular master page on the left or right side of a spread, then the appropriate master page will be chosen. You shouldn’t ever really have a master page that you think of as just a “left” master page, therefore, as either the left or right page will be used according to where in the layout that master page happens to fall.

I noticed that, when I created a custom master page (to put page numbers on a First page) and asked Dorico to copy a LH master page to a RH master page, the second page was a copy rather than a mirror copy. (In both cases the page field I had added was on the left). In addition, the page text field was a linked duplicate: the text in both was justified left, and changing one field caused the justification to change in the other.

Perhaps @pianoleo’s situation is related to this.

Again, it comes down to context:

  1. Have a layout where flows can start on existing pages.
  2. Invoke a master page change (because you want titles or something at the start of a flow midway through the layout).
  3. Override something on the frames on that page (e.g. because you want another title midway down the page).
  4. Fiddle with pagination on previous pages (e.g. by cutting 16 bars).
  5. Delete a now spare previous page (by moving to the end of layout and then removing page overrides from this page).

Step 3 - introducing an override - locks the frames on that page in their current state, and that includes the position of the (totally default) page number text frame at either the top left or top right corner.

It would be jolly lovely to not override Master Pages ever, but - and this is crucial - merely replacing {@flowtitle@} with {@flow2title} constitutes an override.

I cannot for love nor money find a way to have a new flow start halfway down a page with an existing flow WITHOUT either creating a brand new Master Page (specifically for that single page) OR introducing an override.

@Derrek, no, I’ve checked my Master Pages. I’ve become very adept at copying L->R, then immediately clicking the page number frame on the RH page, unlocking the R constraint, locking the L constraint, deselecting the frame, reselecting the frame, then setting the Left frames property (on the bottom pane) to 1pt. One also has to double-check the justification of the text within the frame.

Besides, it’s only overridden pages that display page numbers in the wrong places - all the other pages based on first/default etc. display just fine.

Leo, there is no way of having a flow start halfway down a page and show a title etc. that doesn’t involve either a dedicated master page of a page override. It’s inevitable.

But I assure you: if you insert or remove a page before a master page change, when the master page change moves such that it is now on the left-hand side of the spread rather than the right, or vice versa, then the other page from the master page pair will be used, and provided that pair is set up properly with the page numbers on the expected side for each page of the pair, the page number will appear on the correct side.

Oh, and an overridden page will of course not update when it moves left or right. It’s overridden, so it no longer gets updated like a non-overridden page does when the pagination changes.

Exactly! (Glad I’m not being dense here.)

Hi Folks,

This is my first post here and I am only just scratching the surface with Dorico so what you guys are performing here with the program is far beyond my experience. However, in terms of work flow:

Would it be achievable and worthwhile to create a master page at the end of your flow that remains blank and is in situ for the purpose of copying, sorting and editing excerpts outside of your set pages. Instead of creating a blank page in the middle and performing these edits there, do it at the end of the flow. Then when done, you remove those pages and your layouts aren’t effected.

Does this make sense?

Welcome to Dorico, Sadhaka!

That’s an interesting idea but I don’t think it really helps much, because you would have to change the order in which the music “flows” through the pages to jump out of sequence to the last page and then jump back again. You could do that, but it seems to me like you would just be swapping one problem for a different one.

This should become a lot simpler when you can start a new flow in the middle of a page and automatically insert the flow title etc without doing manual overrides - but that isn’t implemented yet.

Another aspect of all this is that people really seem to like tweaking the format of the project before all the music is entered and the page breaks are stable. There is a well known saying in computer programming that “premature optimisation is the root of all evil”. It also applies to document creation - though WYSIWYG products like Microsoft Word etc have led most people up that garden path! Dorico tries to separate “creating the content” (write mode) and “formatting the document” (engrave mode) but it can be hard to break the habits of a lifetime and start working a different way.

Actually, really large-scale document creation has always worked best the “Dorico way” - try creating say 10,000 cross-references and a similar sized index in a 1,000-page document using the menus and dialogs in Word, and you soon learn the limitations of WYSIWYG compared with a completely text-based input format! But most Word users probably consider a “large document” to be 10 pages, not 1,000.

Of course in music theatre people need to do frequent updates to the music - but even then, does saving half a page of paper in the printed parts really matter, compared with the amount of time and trouble it takes to save it - especially if that version will be thrown away and replaced by another one in a few days anyway?

Rob, the need from frequent updates is not limited to theatre music, it is my usual way to use scoring software. So I can’t agree with your statements. It is of course necessary to change any parts of the music at any time one wish to do so, without destroying already finished parts. Generally, this is one great advantage of software over to do it by hand. If this behaviour will not change in future I know my layout way: back to InDesign.

Isn’t that the problem: you are trying to use Dorico based on habit developed using other programs?

No Derrek, it is the approach and the need which a musician have. Software should serve people, not the opposite way. A little story: one day I visited a shoe store to buy new shoes. As I am having rather wide feet, this is generally a little problem. So the - nice - sales girl shows me a couple of shoes - but no one fits to my feet. At the end she said: “Sorry, but your feet are too wide.” I answerded: “No, the shoes are too narrow.”

Rob,
I totally see your point, and I try to wait with any overrides until the music is done (although my habits tells me otherwise). But as I do a lot of music theatre, this has become quite problematic when it comes to page turns, as these needs to be addressed in every print. I hope for some better way to insert blank pages in the future, but I don’t mind waiting, as Dorico already is a huge timesaver for me :smiley: