Light

Beginner

Professional

Notation

Composition Light

Composition Pro

Drums and Percussion

Guitar

Choir

Keyboard

Soloist

Using templates

Subjects covered:

• What is a template?
• Pizzicato Light and specialized versions
• Pizzicato Beginner
• Pizzicato Pro, Notation and Composition

What is a template? [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]

A template is a prepared music document you can use to start a score faster. If you often write jazz band scores, it is practical to have a template with all prepared staves for each instrument but which contents are empty. By opening the template, you must not create the various staves, indicate the instruments names, nor configure the synthesizer and sound volumes… All is ready in the template document of your jazz band. You can thus immediately begin the interesting work: what are the instruments going to play.

According to the version you have, Pizzicato offers a more or less sophisticated template management.

Pizzicato Light and specialized versions [Light] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]

When Pizzicato starts, it automatically opens the first score template found in the File menu, Open template... item. The same happens when you select the New item of the File menu.

By selecting the Open template... item from the File menu, a sub-menu offers you a series of templates related to the Pizzicato version you have. Examine them in order to see what is possible. You can start a score using these templates and modify them to your needs (except for Pizzicato Light, its 12 templates being fixed and limited to 1 or 2 pages).

Pizzicato Beginner [Beginner]

When Pizzicato start, it automatically opens a score template. By default, it is one page of a piano score. The same happens when you select the New item of the File menu.

To change this default template, select the Global options item in the Options menu. The following dialog box appears:

By clicking the Select… button, Pizzicato lets you select a score to be used as the default template. You can use some of the documents located in the Templates directory, itself locate in the DataEN directory. Those are the documents in linear mode or page, but with a page zoom equal to 100% (or not specified). You can also use a document that you created, suited to your working needs (choral, jazz band, small orchestra…).

In the File menu, the Open template item offers a hierarchy of template documents. It is a direct access to all templates that can be used by the Beginner version, located in the Templates directory (found inside the DataEN directory) and sub-directories. The selected document is then open as a template that you can work with and save under a personalized name.

Pizzicato Pro, Notation and Composition [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

When Pizzicato is started, it automatically opens a score template. By default, it is one page of a piano score. The same happens when you select the New item of the File menu. This document is named Document - xx (xx is a sequence number incremented each time you create a new document). When you save this document for the first time, Pizzicato will automatically ask you to give it a name. In this way, the original template is preserved. No risk to select the Save item and forget to change the document name (this would otherwise destroy the original template, replacing it with your score).

To change this default template, select the Global options item in the Options menu. The following dialog box appears:

With the first frame, labeled At Pizzicato startup, you can determine what Pizzicato will automatically do when you start it. You can select between:

• Do nothing : no document is open
• Create an empty document: Pizzicato creates a document of one measure only
• Open the default template: Pizzicato opens the template selected in the lower frame, labeled Default template. To choose it, click the Select button… and select a document among those located in the Templates directory (itself found inside the DataEN directory) or among your own documents. You can for example create a template with prepared options. If you want to remove automatic justification, personalize colours and fonts, graphic options,... you can create a prepared empty document like you want and then save it in the Templates directory.
• Call the open document dialog: Pizzicato presents the open a document dialog box.
• Call the creation assistant: Pizzicato opens the dialog box that lets you create a personalized score
• Reopen the last document: Pizzicato automatically opens the last document used.

Just below, the frame entitled New document lets you specify the action executed when you select the New item in the File menu. The three available choices are explained here above. Click OK.

In the File menu, the Open template item offers a hierarchy of template documents. It is a direct access to all templates located in the Templates directory (found inside the DataEN directory) and sub-directories. The selected document is then open as a template that you can work with and save under a personalized name.

Light

Beginner

Professional

Notation

Composition Light

Composition Pro

Drums and Percussion

Guitar

Choir

Keyboard

Soloist