Finale Forum

Hello,

I'm trying to correctly engrave a piano solo music composition. I would like to find the best formatting options in order to get nice results for this piano score in terms of readability and beauty, but I find that finale margins and staff size for default piano template doesn't look good enough.
I'd really appreciate your advices on this. Paper size will be A4.

Since it boils down to a matter of taste, I suggest you play around with the settings yourself and see what you like. You'll learn more about Finale in the process.

Another idea:

If you have a piano score with the layout you prefer, then try to recreate that layout with Finale.
You will learn a lot about engraving during the process.


Just one hint:
There are 3 different scalings in Finale:
- Page Scaling
- System Scaling
- Staff Scaling

The layout work might be easier if you Keep It Simple, and use only Page Scaling, i. e. setting both System Scaling and Staff Scaling to 100 % (= Staff Height 24pt).
Then experiment with different Page Scaling percentages.

Peter gave some good advice.

In my opinion, the "beauty" of a music engraving is determined by a lot of factors. High on the list are line thicknesses. Finale's lines are a bit too fine for my taste. You could experiment with thickening them up a very small amount at a time. Each different kind of line should have a different thickness. My own order, from thinnest to thickest is: staff lines - stems - ledger lines - barlines. Make your changes and print out a copy for a critical evaluation. Repeat as necessary till you have the look you want.

I'm attaching a copy of a piano template containing my own personal line settings. I'm not trying to give the impression that these are correct - far from it. However, I've given a fair amount of thought to these settings. Copy in some piano notation and see what you think. Tweak the settings as you like.

N.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll give them a try next piece I write. Thomas Wolfe's curse doesn't apply to most programs.

Thanks so much for all the suggestions

Where are the options to tweak the individual parameter's thickness?

Document Options / Lines and Curves.

Document Options - Barlines.

Document Options - Stems.

Also, consider the thickness of Crescendo / Decrescendo wedges (hairpins):
Smart Shape Tool.
Smart Shape menu > Smart Shape Options…

Peter Thomsen wrote:Document Options - Barlines.

Document Options - Stems.

Also, consider the thickness of Crescendo / Decrescendo wedges (hairpins):
Smart Shape Tool.
Smart Shape menu > Smart Shape Options…

Also, Document Options > Lines and Curves (for ledger lines and staff lines).

Also, consider the thickness of ties (Document Options > Ties > Tie Contour) and slurs (Smart Shape Menu > Smart Slur options). Ties and slurs should be the same thickness (?).

N.

Hi all,
Just revisiting this older post and appreciating the wisdom contained therein...

Question: Document Settings> Beams > Maximum Slope, should I choose 0.5 or 1?

Gould shows an example of 0.5 and 1 on p.19, so I am thinking I will set the maximum as 1.

What do you think?
Cheers,
HP.

As everyone said, it's up to you. If you can't decide, split the difference, and try .75!