Notation Express and XL for Dorico 5 add lots of new buttons and features to support many of the newer features in Dorico.
formatting
Heads up: Page numbers and headers
In music scores and parts, page numbers and headers are some of the most underappreciated and overlooked elements of what appears on the page. When you stop to think about it, it’s no mystery why that’s the case.
Perfecting page layout in Finale
Perfect page layout is essential to creating quality output from music notation software. Finale offers a multitude of options to format the music on the page, but understanding where the options are is important in the quest to conquer Finale.
Orchestra librarians want you to know about instrument names
Here’s a video tutorial, with a complete transcript, from Thomas Goss of Orchestration Online on the subject of correctly labeling instrument names and numbers in your score, and its importance to the orchestra staff and librarian.
Orchestra librarians want you to know about parts paper sizes
Before you do any work on parts, you’ll want to get one basic parameter from the librarian: the paper size their orchestra prefers for their instrument parts. Here’s a video tutorial from Thomas Goss of Orchestration Online on the subject, with a complete transcript.
Fix errant cautionary time signature at end of system in Sibelius
Here’s a solution to correct when a cautionary time signature is uncomfortably hanging outside the edge of the page margin in Sibelius.
Restore the link in File Info fields between score and parts in Sibelius
In Sibelius, when working in a file with a score and parts, you can unintentionally break the link between the wildcards used for title and composer text. It can cause a whale of a problem, but fortunately there’s a way to escape.
Properties management in Dorico
Managing properties of objects in Dorico is powerful and flexible. You can change properties in two modes: a global mode where the properties are immediately propagated, and a local mode where they are set in the active layout only.
Hollywood-style parts and blank staves in Dorico
Dorico supports creating empty staves either at the end of a part layout — sometimes referred to as “Hollywood-style” parts — or simply in order to create custom manuscript paper.
Manual staff visibility in Dorico
Dorico has a tool called Manual Staff Visibility which allows the user to easily hide or show staves throughout a score, to mitigate instances where a page will show too much white space as a result. Learn how to use it in your score.