Finale Forum

How do I import a third party music font into PrintMusic (or Notepad for that matter if it's possible)? I have a font called Larsen which was created to transcribe Irish Traditional Music notation/ornaments and is compatible with Finale. But I have no idea how to use it and opening Documents - Change Default Fonts doesn't allow any alteration to the music font. Help please!!

Welcome to the forum.

PrintMusic doesn't allow using additional music fonts. You would have to go to the full Finale, as far as I know.

All is not lost, however!

The only relevant characters are the ornamentations: crans, rolls, cuts, etc. You can create them as expressions in PrintMusic, using the Larsen font. After you've created all of them, save that document with a name like "Larsen Ornaments" and save it as a template. From then on, you can create a new document from that template, and the ornaments will be there. The actual music font doesn't matter, so you can use the PM default.

Here is a short sample of what I'm talking about. (Done in PM 2014)

Another thought:

I do not know whether PrintMusic has the “full Finale” feature of being able to save libraries, and load libraries.
If the “libraries” feature is available in PrintMusic, then you could save an articulation library with the Larsen font articulations, and load that “Larsen articulations” library into documents already created.

However, there is another way to accomplish the same (in case PrintMusic does not support libraries):
Create a document with the Larsen articulations.
Enter in the document one measure containing as many notes as there are Larsen articulations.
Assign each of the Larsen articulations to one of the notes.
Now you have one measure containing notes with all the Larsen articulations.
You can copy that measure, and paste it into another document.
In that way the Larsen articulations will be added to that other document, just as if you had loaded a library with the Larsen articulations.

Peter,
No, PM does not have the ability to save or load libraries. Your other idea is a good one, though. That way you could use the Larsen expressions in all of the other templates.

It would have to be done with expressions, though. You can't create articulations in PM.

Thanks for your helpful thoughts. I've not yet bought any software - I want to know that it works before I do - so can you walk me slowly through creating the ornamentations and using them via "expressions," miker. Thanks. And if that works in PM does it also work in SongWriter and Notepad? Do they have the facility to use expressions and save a Larsen document?

SongWriter yes, NotePad no.

Once you have installed the Larsen font, open a document. Then, open the Expressions dialogue. Go to the "miscellaneous" category, and tap Create Miscellaneous Expression. It's pretty self-explanatory from there. Enter your symbol with the correct font and size, and there you are.

Note that this is for print only, not playback!

Go ahead and download the demo version of the program(s). Try it out, and ask questions!

Hi miker,
Thanks very much for that help. Songwriter should be plenty for me then. I will follow your instructions and see how I get on.
I may come back to this forum if I get stuck.
Cheers
Mike

Hi,
I didn't get around to buying any software when I last asked questions regarding the use of Larsen's font to create ornaments but I now want to go ahead using Songwriter . . . if it works. You suggested creating expressions saving a document with them all in as a template so that they will be there (presumably still in misc expressions) when the template is used. I have a further question. I will be creating most of the music in abc notation which I can convert to xml. I would want to use Songwriter to put in the Larsen ornaments but can I import xml into the template that I want to use? Otherwise I would have to create misc expressions every time I create a new document. Unfortunately I can't experiment with the trial version. Many thanks.

Just thinking off the top of my head, you might have to copy your newly-imported document into your "ornamented" template.

A bigger concern now would be the compatability of the program with the OS. If you have been keeping your Mac current, some of the older Finale products may no longer work. Take a look at this page http://www.finalemusic.com/search/?uste ... patibility to see what's what.

Thanks for your reply, Miker. Yes, I can see it might be a fiddly business getting the xml file into the ornamented template. Right now, I'm not sure how one copies over the music. But I have other concerns too. I've been messing around with an imported file and it doesn't seem possible to edit it, for example to remove grace notes and replace them with Finale's crisper-looking notes . . . or simply to change a note. Maybe there is a way but I haven't found it yet. And as you say there is the question of compatibility. My Mac Mini won't handle Sierra so El Capitan is as far as I go but I understand that Songwriter 2012 is not completely compatible with it and that there are bugs. I've written to Finale to ask when it's going to be upgraded. 2012 is getting a bit dated now. Do you by chance know how to copy the xml music over to the template and also to edit the xml music? If I can't get such things to work easily I may just stick with the abcnotation software I have, since I've found a way to bring in the Larsen font. It's certainly not as pretty at the end of the day but I find abc initially much the best way to jot down the music I'm working out.

I've just figured that cut and paste work fine and I that I can "erase" notes from xml so that's a big plus. It could still work well. I'll continue to find my way around the software and wait to see what Finale say about an update to Songwriter. Looking back through their blog, Songwriter 2012 is no longer supported with El Capitan but they seem to suggest there are no great problems.