Flow headings

Flow headings allow you to show the titles of flows immediately above their first system automatically. They function like templates, in much the same way as page templates, allowing the same flow heading formatting to be applied to multiple flows in different layouts.

Flow headings exist as part of page template sets. By default, Dorico Pro provides one flow heading in each page template set, which contains tokens to display the flow number and flow title; in a new project, this appears as “1. Flow 1”. This is used automatically for all flow headings.

You can customize the default flow heading, such as changing the tokens it contains or adding extra frames, create new flow headings, and insert flow heading changes to individual pages and ranges of pages.

Figure 1. Dashed lines showing the edges of a flow heading text frame

Any changes you make to flow headings in the flow heading editor are automatically reflected on the pages that use those flow headings. For example, if you delete a token from a flow heading in the flow heading editor, that token is removed from all the pages that use that flow heading, so long as those pages do not have page template overrides.

Flow headings are automatically inserted inside music frames above the first system of the flow to which they apply, meaning they do not have a fixed vertical position on the page like other frames and follow the music if it moves. They also occupy vertical space within music frames. You can change the margins for the space above and below flow headings on a per-layout and on a per-page basis by inserting flow heading changes.

Note

Flow headings only appear in page template music frames, they never appear in layout music frames.

When Frames is selected in the Engrave toolbox, frames in flow headings appear with dashed lines instead of solid lines to help you identify them. You can move flow heading frames in the same ways as moving any other frames, but this creates a page template override, which is a type of page format change.

Note

Changing individual flow headings in layouts is considered a page template override in Dorico Pro, which is a type of page format change. This includes, for example, deleting a token from a single flow heading on one page, rather than in the flow heading editor. Pages with page template overrides no longer get updated if you edit the page template or flow heading and are not automatically deleted, even if they are empty because the layout became shorter.

Video tutorial about flow headings (English)