Templates... Creating and converting
For the past several years, I've been in the habit of working with two main layouts - a condensed 5-piece on-stage Broadway ensemble, and a (roughly) standard 15-piece pit orchestra. (I work a lot with known local resources, so this may not be exactly standard, but it is what I'm used to working with.) I have created templates for each format.
First of all, the process of creating templates is by no means clear. It's actually quite simple, but the documentation isn't much help. What would be really helpful would be a menu item under "File" which clearly says "Save Template", with the save path set to the current templates folder. Saving an active file to the templates folder works perfectly well, but it is confusing to someone who does not do it often.
Secondly, I'm in the process of expanding a number of scores from the 5-piece to the 15-piece formats. It would be really nice if I could take a score which was created with my "Broadway-5" template, and open it on top of my "Broadway-15" template without having to add the instruments and other items which define the two templates. (For example, the conductor's score for the 5-piece is presented in landscape mode, whereas that is not practical with the 15-piece.)
So... my question:
Is it possible to apply a new template to an existing score, or is that outside the order of events in creating a MS score?
Comments
I agree a "Save as template" could be useful, or just improve the documentation.
I don't understand the question about opening a score "on top of" another. Do you mean you have a score for five instruments, and you want to add the other 10 instruments easily? I can't think of a super straightforward to do that except copy and paste, although of course you lose a lot of info in that process. Could be nice to have customizable sets of instruments that one can add from the instrument window, I guess. The other style settings you can transfer easily, though - use Format / Save Style and Load Style.
In reply to I agree a "Save as template"… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks, Marc. That is precisely what I mean. I’ve got a number of scores in the 5-piece configuration which I would like to rearrange for a larger ensemble. I do have styles and templates saved for both formats. I was just hoping to avoid the work of adding ten instruments to every score.