Making selections into frames

You can force all musical material between two selected rhythmic positions into a single frame; for example, if you want specific bars to appear on the same page.

Prerequisite

  • You have allowed/disallowed breaks within bars.

  • The left zone is shown.

  • Graphic Editing Graphic Editing button is selected in the Engrave toolbox.

Procedure

  1. In Engrave mode, select an item at the rhythmic position that you want to be the start of the frame.
    Note

    We recommend that you select noteheads or barlines. Selecting other items, such as slurs, can cause frame breaks to be inserted earlier/later than you might have intended.

  2. Ctrl/Cmd-click one of the following:
    • A notehead that you want to be at the end of the frame

    • An item that you want to be at the start of the next frame

  3. In the Format Music Frames section of the Formatting panel, click Make into Frame .

Result

A fixed frame is created by inserting frame breaks at the start/end of your selection. The frame contains all musical material between the two selected items.

If breaks are disallowed within bars, the first break snaps to the barline before the earliest selected item, while the second break snaps to the barline after the last selected item.

If breaks are allowed within bars, the content of the frame depends on your selections.

  • If you selected items, such as barlines or slurs, the beginning your first selected item is positioned at the start of the frame, and the end of your last selected item is positioned at the start of the next frame.

  • If you selected noteheads, the last selected notehead is also included in the frame, rather than being positioned at the start of the next frame.

  • If you selected ties, all musical material between the first and last notes tie chains is included in the frame, regardless of where in the tie chains you made selections.

Note

The frame break inserted at the start of the selection has Wait for next frame break activated in the Format group of the Properties panel by default. Because this property tells Dorico Pro to include all music in the frame until the next frame break, if you later delete subsequent frame breaks, this can create very full frames with tightly spaced, or overlapping, systems.

Deactivating Wait for next frame break allows Dorico Pro to cast off subsequent music as normal.