Page templates in Dorico Pro allow you to achieve consistent page formatting by applying the same arrangements of frames to multiple pages and in different layouts.
You can set the page size, margins, page orientation, and staff size for each layout in Layout Options.
All pages in your scores and parts inherit their default formatting from page templates. Whenever you change anything on page templates, such as inserting new frames, this is automatically reflected on all pages that use these page templates, provided those pages do not have page template overrides.
In Dorico Pro, each page template consists of a page pair: one left page and one right page. Pages that fall on the left, typically even-numbered pages, use the formatting of the left page in the page template; pages that fall on the right, typically odd-numbered pages, use the formatting of the right page in the page template. In both the Page Templates section of the Pages panel and the page template editor, page pairs in the same page template appear side-by-side.
Dorico Pro provides different types of page templates so that there is appropriate page formatting for first pages independently of subsequent pages, as the first page typically includes additional information, such as the title, composer, and copyright. Dorico Pro uses tokens to display this additional information.
Page templates are contained in page template sets. By default, Dorico Pro provides separate page template sets for full score and part layouts. Page template sets are automatically applied to every layout that you create.
You can customize the default page templates in the page template editor as required for the current project. You can also create new, custom page templates in each page template set. For example, for title pages and performance instructions.
Changing individual pages in layouts is considered a page template override in Dorico Pro, which is a type of page format change. This includes, for example, editing the title or running header on one page, rather than in the page template editor. Pages with page template overrides no longer get updated if you edit the page template and are not automatically deleted, even if they are empty because the layout became shorter.