Create your perfect music layout | Discover Dorico

In this session we explore all the options in Dorico Pro 5 for creating your perfect music layout. Learn which options to change, where they are and in which order you should adjust things to save the most time while creating your perfect layout.
If you have previously found creating layouts a challenge or are daunted by the options this session is for you!

0:00 Introduction - Dorico v5.1.80 available now

2:48 Foundations first, details later
5:35 Page size global preference: (International/US Preferences)

Foundations
6:55 Layout Options (Ctrl/Cmd-Shift-L)
7:10 Page size (Letter/Tabloid/A3/A4 etc)
8:30 Page margins
11:14 Music Frame margins
12:55 Flow headings (editing and removing)
16:30 Remove page overrides
17:00 Project Info (title, composer etc)
18:45 Page Templates
20:00 Make paragraph style for text tokens
21:15 Making text frames bigger

26:25 Transposition options (concert pitch vs transposed)
27:20 Staff labels, size and options
30:40 Staff names vs layout names
31:30 Initial staff gap
32:20 Hide Empty Staves
34:20 Casting off
36:25 Collision avoidance for more consistent vertical spacing in parts
39:50 Increase the gap between staves for galley view

Details
41:20 Staff/rastral size
44:45 Change staff size for one page/section
46:01 Change the size of one staff (right-click) e.g. soloist in a piano part
47:00 Note Spacing
50:25 Note spacing change for a section
51:25 Manual note spacing change for individual notes

55:24 Page turns
56:34 Manual system and frame breaks
59:25 Wait for next break 'issue'
1:00:35 Make into System/Frame

1:02:50 Staff/system spacing gaps
1:04:55 The 60% and 80% page justification - only one will apply
1:10:00 System dividers

1:10:35 Manually moving/dragging staves
1:12:55 Alt-drag for 'concertina' effect
1:14:30 Copy/propagate part formatting to new part

Questions:
1:16:15 Multirests on/off
1:17:40 Align rehearsal markings with systemic barline

Collision avoidance examples (and turning it off)
1:19:18 Consistent vertical spacing in parts - turn off collision avoidance
1:21:20 Select more for Rehearsal markings and manually position
1:23:02 Text affecting staff spacing
1:25:00 Lines affecting staff spacing

1:31:50 Export/import page templates
1:32:25 Re-use project as a template
1:32:50 Save as project template
1:33:50 Library manager for selectively importing settings

We hope you find this video entertaining and useful. If you like what you see, please comment and tell us what you think. Thank you.
Your Steinberg YouTube Team

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[mtreder]

Brilliant! Answered 2, 187 questions that I had.

[markcaponjazzguitar]

Very powerful features were discussed here and as well as in the other Dorico training videos! Please continue to make these excellent training videos, they are very helpful!

[robinthomsoncomposer]

Fantastically useful tutorial. Layout is the part of Dorico that I have struggled with the most so thank you for putting this together.

[rickhole]

This is very helpful. I am 5 months into Dorico and still learning.

[MichaelClark-zcht]

This should be mandatory for all Dorico users right out of the box. I wish I had seen this tutorial months ago. THANK YOU!

[mattmccaffrey]

Very much appreciated. I took a dual path toward engraving many years ago from both typesetting and general music, so these calculations and adjustments are right up my alley. Esp. endorse the advice to let the software do the big picture (foundational) work before making manual adjustments.

[jonathanaarnold]

A session on condensing and divisi (I'm interested especially in choral divisi) would be great!

[farnaztabatabaee]

This is what I've been waiting for since a year ago:))Thank you!

[bllft]

Great session! Learned so much. I appreciate all the help and thoughtful presentation. Bookmarks will help as I will be back to review some things. [Say hello to Willow the dog for us]

[caroleprietto]

Vertical justification explanation is OUTSTANDING! Thank you!

[sttrumpet]

Simply brilliant, John!! I will be re-watching this session multiple times to actually absorb all this wonderful info.

[bonuebonue]

Thank you John, for again another amazing, clear and deep tutorial!! I love the Discover Dorico series!!

[stephenlimbaugh]

Another vote here for a session on condensing. Working with a large score even on tabloid, and maximizing readability for large (in terms of number of players) would be exceedingly helpful!

[composerdoh]

This is SO useful! Weird question- I wish I'd seen this video BEFORE I formatted my last movement 🤣- but now that I'm playing around with the things you're talking about on here (and everything I touch creates a rats nest of NEW problems I'm not sure how to even start fixing😂) is there a way to just erase everything that's entered ONLY in engrave mode, but keep all the notes and other info entered in write mode in the score, to just reset all the formatting to "factory settings" so to speak?
Come to think of it, that could be enormously useful in converting some old Finale files that look like a rats nest of problems when I open them in Dorico. Thanks!

[davidglabais]

Any chance Dorico 5 Pro will see an update that allows rhythm slashes in guitar notation to be expressed as a muted strum using an x- notehead with the slash? Am I (and several other people as far as I can see) missing something? Only proper noteheads can be expressed as a dead-note using the "X"? Some clarification would be appreciated on this. In GP8, one would simply click on the slash press "X" and you're done. This feature with a suitable short-cut would be enough for me to purchase it. Having the editable text-function menu is really nice. 👍Ty.

[garygimmestad]

Great tutorial! One issue I'm still unclear on is related to vertical spacing. A common scenario: 1 1/2 pages. The half-page vertical inter-system spacing is less than the whole page spacing. Is there a method to equalize them other than manually? Thanks!

[RebeccaAnnewithanE]

I use Dorico SE 5. How does that relate to Pro? In other words, does this video help me with my new input of an old Finale-used arrangement. Note: When I looked up the arrangement which I did in Finale, it was an empty score. Wonder if I can find it in the recycle ben? !!

[CorradoLoffredi]

Hi. Many thanks for this video! I would ask if there's some musical font remembering the Durand's fonts? Thanks. 😊

[composerdoh]

Is there a way to reduce the size of staves in JUST ONE particular system? I think we could do that in Finale- it comes in handy in reducing the number of pages.

[pianodude]

playback of tied notes across repeat barlines. How about full control of display color/transparency for note articulations and other elements? Hopefully these features are coming to Dorico 6.