Sizing improvisation boxes?

[David Ward]

I'm outside my comfort zone here both musically and in Finale (scroll down the screenshot a bit to see the boxes).

Musically, because I'm used to more control, precisely notated; but there is a reason for the quasi-aleatory here because of my collaboration with an artist.

In Finale, because I'm having difficulty sizing the boxes (text boxes) surrounding musical material to make them the same size in score and parts. The problem seems to exist because in the score the staves for the cello etc are reduced (65%), but are full size in the linked parts. I had supposed that unlinking from the parts would deal with this, but it seems not.

My likely solution will be to do the sizing in the parts last, just before printing them to PDF. However, if anyone has a better solution …

[Peter Thomsen]

Two ideas:

1) Create the box with the Smart Shape Tool.
In that way the box will automatically resize in score and linked part.

2) Use two boxes, one box for the score (not showing in the linked part), and another box for the linked part (not showing in the score).

[David Ward]

Two ideas:

1) Create the box with the Smart Shape Tool.
In that way the box will automatically resize in score and linked part.

2) Use two boxes, one box for the score (not showing in the linked part), and another box for the linked part (not showing in the score).

Thanks. I'll try the Smart Shape Tool, which seems to have possibilities beyond those I regularly explore.

[zuill]

I think creating boxes with the Smart Shape tool requires 2 parts overlapped, which is doable.

Regarding Text Shapes, one needs to use a separate shape for each occurrence or use a metatool to apply so that each one is individually adjustable. I'm sure you already have a method for that.

As far as making Score and Part individually adjustable, I would enter the box in the Score, then right click the handle and choose for Score Only. I would then go to the Part and enter a different text Shape and set it for Part Only. In this way, you have 2 separate boxes, unique to Score and Part. This approach is different fro unlinking and hiding the normal way.

Zuill

[HaraldS]

I wrote a JWLua script to draw boxes around whole measures. I published it in the European Finale Forum, you can find it here: http://finaleforum.superflexible.net/vi ... php?t=4681 . Maybe it's of some help.

Harald