Steinberg has released Dorico 6.2.10, a minor update to Dorico 6.2, with improvements across guitar tablature, text, tuplets, and workflow, along with dozens of bug fixes. When announcing Dorico 6.2 on March 10, Steinberg product marketing manager Daniel Spreadbury had said, “You can expect at least one more small update to Dorico 6” — and here it is.
The version history documentation for this release thoroughly documents the improvements as well as the bug fixes.
Here’s what’s new in Dorico 6.2.10, as provided by Steinberg.
Improvements
Default paths. By default, Dorico now chooses your default Dorico project location as the initial save location when exporting a page template set, and the initial open location when importing a page template set. Similarly, when choosing Library > Export Library, Dorico offers your default Dorico project location as the initial save location.
Guitar tablature
Natural and pinch harmonics. The default position of the NH and PH lines that appear above the top string of the tablature over a series of notes with natural or pinch harmonics has been improved: when the run of harmonics ends at a barline, the right-hand end of the line no longer unexpectedly crosses the barline. The default position of the line from the top string of the tablature is now governed by the new Default distance of natural and pinch harmonic lines from tablature option on the Harmonics page of Engraving Options. NH and PH lines are now also fully adjustable in Engrave mode, both for nudging with the keyboard and dragging with the mouse.
Pre-bend re-pick. The RP (re-pick) line that appears above the top string of the tablature over a series of notes with identical pre-bends can now be nudged and dragged in Engrave mode. Its default position relative to the top string of the tablature is governed by the new Vertical distance of re-pick line from tablature option in the Position section of the Guitar Bends page of Engraving Options.
Artificial harmonics. The Artificial harmonics on tablature option on the Harmonics page of Engraving Options now includes a new choice: Diamond enclosure and touched note above staff. As its name suggests, this encloses the stopped fret in a diamond and shows the touched pitch above the top string of the tablature, prefixed with AH — the convention used in the European-style tablature popularized by Guitarist magazine.
Instrument changes
Hiding warnings and labels. A new Hidden property has been added for instrument change warnings and labels, found in the Instrument Changes group in the Properties panel in Engrave mode. When activated, the warning or label is hidden. Signposts now appear for instrument change warnings and labels that are hidden — either via the Hidden property, or because the Custom text property is set and contains only whitespace characters. Signposts for instrument changes can be shown or hidden via View > Signposts > Instrument Changes.
Instrument filters
Play only filtered instruments. When an instrument filter is activated in galley view, you can now specify that Dorico should play only the filtered instruments during playback. Activate the S (solo) button to hear only the filtered instruments when you next start playback. Note that activating or deactivating this button during playback has no immediate effect — it only affects Dorico’s decision about which instruments to include when playback starts. This applies only in galley view; if you are in page view or in Play mode, all instruments will play back as normal.
Notes
Split stem notehead attachment. A new Engrave-only property, Split stem notehead att., has been added to the Notes and Rests group in the Properties panel. This allows you to adjust the precise point at which the angled stem joins the outermost notehead on a split stem.
Text
Smartening quotes. The decision for whether quotes in text should be smartened is now determined by a dedicated Smarten quotes option in each paragraph and character style, rather than a single global setting. As such, the old Smarten quotes option on the Text page of Engraving Options has been removed. This provides much greater control over smart quotes in text frames, text items in the music, staff labels, lyrics, and more. The Smarten quotes property for an individual lyric now also allows you to override this decision in both directions — enabling smart quotes for a specific lyric even when they are disabled in the relevant paragraph style, and vice versa. If you have existing projects or libraries that relied on the old global setting, you’ll want to check your paragraph and character styles after updating to make sure they’re set as expected.
Tuplets
Bracket position. A new Tuplet bracket position option has been added to the Brackets section of the Tuplets page of Engraving Options. By default, tuplet brackets are centered vertically on the tuplet digits or ratio, and break to either side of the text (In line with digits). Some publishers prefer an unbroken bracket outside the text; to use this appearance, choose Outside digits. The minimum distance between the outer edge of the tuplet text and the bracket when using Outside digits is determined by the new Bracket distance from digits option.
Playback
Auto playback template. When opening an existing project, the message that appears offering to apply the Auto playback template now has the Continue button as the default. This means that if you confirm the message box using the keyboard, no change is made to the playback setup of the project — you now have to actively choose Use Auto Playback Template to make a change. This should help prevent the template from being applied unintentionally.
User interface
Save as Project Template dialog. In File > Save as Project Template, you can now choose one of the existing categories from a drop-down menu, with autocomplete as you type the category name. Similarly, when typing into the Name field, Dorico will offer to autocomplete the name of existing templates in the chosen category.
Panning with the middle mouse button. A new Middle mouse button changes selection option has been added to the Note Input section of the Note Input and Editing page of Preferences, and is activated by default. If you prefer to pan around the score by holding the middle mouse button and moving the mouse, you may want to deactivate this option — doing so prevents unwanted changes of selection when using the middle mouse button to scroll.
Default file locations. When importing a page template set, using Library > Export Library, or importing a graphic into the music symbols editor, the default folder offered is now the default project saving location.
iPad-specific issues
The way the Keyboard panel tracks multi-touch inputs has been improved, which greatly improves its reliability. In previous versions of the app, it was all too easy for touches to result in keys getting stuck down. This has now been solved.
A problem affecting working with projects saved in iCloud Drive but not in the standard Dorico folder has now been fixed.
Bug fixes
The version history documentation for this release documents more than three dozen bug fixes across areas including chord symbols, clefs, condensing, dynamics, harmonics, note input, playback, repeats, tablature, tempo, text, time signatures, and the user interface.
Availability
Dorico 6.2.10 for Windows and Mac desktop is a free update for current registered users of Dorico Pro 6, Dorico Elements 6, and Dorico SE 6, and is available now via the Steinberg Download Assistant.
For full coverage of Dorico 6, please read our comprehensive review of Dorico 6 and the posts about Dorico 6.2, Dorico 6.1, Dorico 6.0.22, and Dorico 6.0.10, and listen to our podcast episode featuring an interview with Daniel Spreadbury.
Dorico 6.2.10 for iPad is available in the App Store. If your device hasn’t already automatically downloaded and installed the update, you can find it in the Updates section of the App Store app on your iPad.
For the latest information about compatibility for Sibelius, Dorico, and MuseScore Studio, as well as links to the latest news and reviews about product releases, please see the Scoring Notes Product Guide.
Derek Williams
Thank you for this notification of these welcome improvements and fixes. Downloading now and looking forward to trying them out. As this is the last update for version 6, I would like to flag up at least a couple of feature requests for version 7.
A longstanding request I have is halve/double score (as distinct from halve/double note values) – easily done in Sibelius, but not currently possible in Dorico. I made a detailed Feature Request here, which shows all the steps, and which has attracted some support: https://forums.steinberg.net/t/feature-request-halve-double-score/965952
Essentially the feature halves or doubles the entire score or selected part thereof, e.g. in 4/2 time score halved becomes 4/4 time, with everything halved, including all tuplets proportionately. As laid out in my Forum post above, to achieve this currently I have to export the score from Dorico as MusicXML, halve it (or double it) in Sibelius, and then re-export as Dolet MusicXML and import to Dorico.
Another Feature Request is for a ‘staff below’ string staves when importing MusicXML detailed here: https://forums.steinberg.net/t/feature-request-auto-convert-staff-below-on-string-staves-to-divisi-when-importing-musicxml/1005097
Tayto
“You can expect at least one more small update to Dorico 6” considering Dorico 6 was officially released on April 30, 2025, would be pretty underwhelming…