Finale Forum

Just curious: does your macro number the parts from the top? If yes, parts will get different numbers in different pieces, e.g. if you have two flutes in piece #1 and three flutes in piece 2, the Oboe 1 will become number 3 in the first case and number 4 in the second. Is that acceptable for your pu...

If you have a minute, could you quickly explain the outline of your script or share a screen-shot? That would be much appreciated, Best Certainly. My script takes PDF files via drag-and-drop, concatenates them and saves them. Here's a screenshot, it's the one in the red box: MakeBigBandPDFWindow.pn...

Quite some Finale users seem to use Autohotkey. Some of them even publish their scripts randomly. It's not necessarily easy, but very powerful.

I wrote myself an Autohotkey script to solve that issue. I do lead two jazz orchestras and thus have the urgent need to have fast access to nearly 1000 parts and scores in PDF format, which is only possible using strict naming conventions. To check completeness, it's necessary to have the files in s...

Entering via Hyperscribe to Finale's built in metronome gives unusable results, although I consider myself a decent keyboard player. Entering via Hyperscribe and tapping the beat on a pedal gives much better results. These two methods are worlds apart in my opinion, so when talking about it, it's al...

Noteheads can be mass-changed in this window: https://usermanuals.finalemusic.com/Fin ... GNOTHD.htm
Use „Find“ - „Selected notehead2 and „change to“ - „selected notehead“ and enter the desired values.

Use Chris' Reinitialization of baselines plugin (you need JWLua for that). Works like a charm. See on Jan's site #17, or register directly on the french forum where Chris' scripts can be downloaded.

Waiting for Finale to implement it, you have the options to create the note shape denominator only as a shape expression, or the whole TS, as I did (and then having to give extra space at the beginning of the measure). But the extra space is given already, as the true time signature is moved off pa...

And in case you haven't installed the JW Change plugin: go to the score manager and click into the "M" column in the row "Layer 2" do mute this layer in this staff:

First, enter the notes into layer #2. Then, select Show active layer only and replace the noteheads with "X" or diamond noteheads using the Change Noteheads dialog box.

Is there a way to remove all accidentals from a large group of notes that's faster than manually correcting each note? Yes. If you can install and use the JWLua plugin within your Finale 2014, this script does what you want: for entry in eachentrysaved(finenv.Region()) do for note in each(entry) do...

Is the notation Cm7-5 generally known in Anglo-American practice? Or is it more typical of Scandinavian (European) usage? I never saw it in Anglo-American music, but I saw it a lot in German sheet music from the 1950-1980s. Using a "-" instead of a flat is a historic practice which tends to disappe...

Melisande wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 26, 2020 9:23 pm

I am typing lyrics directly into my score. How do I add diacritical marks (like umlauts)?

Press the Alt key and enter the Unicode number on the number pad. E.G. for "ä": <Alt>0228.
See this page for all Unicode numbers for german umlaute.

gdgross wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 17, 2020 3:19 am

I'm aware I could easily add extra staves, but I'm after as few page turns as possible, and a single chart for the whole band

Yes, of course! The extra staves can easily be hidden, so they won't need any extra space.

Peter already answered your question. I make a lot of lead sheets with "extra" stuff like rhythm notes above/below the staff etc. Sometimes I'd like to hide the ledger lines for the extra stuff and retain them for the main notated melody. You might consider using an extra staff for the extra stuff ;...

Speedy Entry is not horrible to use, but you have to learn some hotkeys and input tactics to benefit from its power. I can strongly recommend to use it with a MIDI keyboard and set up a hotkey for slurs - then speedy is by far the fastest and most accurate entering method in Finale. To replace a qua...

Jay - that's a strange error. I (and probably others as well) would like to have a look into the file. Could you post a few bars showing the error? Thanks.

That should be possible, I imported files of comparable sizes. Two questions:
1. How do you know that it's 7200 notes?
2. Can you post the file (or a similar one) for testing?

You need to construct the box from smart shapes, too. Then extend the arrow line to the left so that its starting point is in the same measure and at the same position as the boxes' right border line.

If Update Layout then changes the measure's width, both smart shapes will stay attached.

Trashing the preference file has helped other people in comparable situations:

How to do it: Resetting Finale's preferences (using a tool crashes Finale, etc.)

e.g.: window with sharps, flats, naturals, etc has disappeared

The real source of frustration with Finale on a laptop for me woud be the small screen size, not any other technical spec. 17'' or the like is not enough to display enough music to work senseful in Finale, as is my experience. Working speed in Finale depends highly on the ability to copy things; thi...

Hector's bug aside, has anyone seen this notation of cancelling and then reintroducing the same sharp or flat when there's a mode change? "Behind Bars" doesn't mention it, and I don't think I've ever seen it. It's odd that there's not an option to turn it off in Finale. I wonder if it's even intent...

Thanks for reminding me about that. I recall to have heard of that technique years ago, but I seldom used it. But did you know this trick? I could find nothing about it in the documentation. It's mentioned e.g. in the FInale 2014 manual: To change an existing marking to a different one using a Metat...

Is there a way to tell Finale that in speedy, when I hit =, top ALWAYS tie the entire chord? The answer to your question is no, unfortunately. I would like such a command, too. On Windows, I programmed a hotkey within a macro program called Autohotkey. It sends "Arrow down" 10 times, triggers the t...

Gwyn wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 02, 2019 9:36 am

Is it possible to beam one voice across two staves? I've attached a sketch of the sort of thing I'm hoping to achieve.

Of course: Finale QuickTips: Cross-Staff Beaming
And a bit more in depth: Cross-staff notes