Tutorials – Dorico

Tip: The Select Button

1. By default, Dorico has mouse input enabled, meaning you can select a note in the Notes panel and click in the score to enter music.
2. While this can be very useful—and many people choose to work this way—some prefer to input notes using either a MIDI keyboard or their computer keyboard.
3. Of course, you can input using a keyboard with mouse input still enabled. However, you can run the risk of clicking in score by mistake and entering notes you didn’t mean; and you have to disable note input before selecting other items in the score.
4. When you enable Select, clicking on the score does not input notes. And when you click on another music item (notes, rests, dynamics, tempo and so on) it is selected, and note input exited.
5. If you like this way of working, you can make it the default behaviour on the Note Input and Editing page of Preferences.

1. The default font used for text in Dorico is Academico. This is the font that will be used by all paragraph styles that inherit from the default font, and also for text components of music items, such as tempo markings and playing techniques.
2. You can choose which font will be used for these type of text objects. Open Preferences and at the top of the General page, set the Default text font family. Apply the setting and close the dialog.
3. The new text font will be applied to any new projects you create. Setting the font family in Preferences will not affect existing projects.

When working on a large score with several instruments, it can be difficult to orientate yourself – especially when zoomed in.
Show guide instrument labels and bar numbers by opening the View menu and enabling the relevant option in the Bar Numbers sub-menu.
By default, guide bar numbers and instrument labels are switched on for working in Galley View, but it is also possible to enable them for Page View.
Guide instrument labels and bar numbers do not print.

1. Swap the contents of two voices by making a selection, right-clicking (or opening the Edit menu) and choosing Voices > Swap Voice Contents.
2. Swap the music on two staves by making a selection, right-clicking (or opening the Edit menu) and choosing Paste Special > Swap.

Double-click the start of an existing melodic line of music.
Engage Chord mode and Lock to Duration both found in the Notes toolbox.
Chord mode can be engaged using the key command Q, and Lock to Duration using L.
Enter your harmony using either the computer keyboard or a MIDI keyboard.
Use Space to advance the caret; the new notes are aligned to the existing rhythms.