Equalize measure width

[tdlucas]

Is there a way to quickly adjust measure width on a staff? I spend too much time lengthening and shortening measures one by one.

[N Grossingink]

There is no quick and easy way to do these kind of manual adjustments.

You shouldn't have to do a lot, if any, adjustment to measure widths. I'd try less measures on a particular system if the spacing is too tight—more measures if it is too loose. Using a different spacing library may help improve the default spacing of scores and parts. If you'd like some tips on how to get better overall spacing, post a screenshot of a few problem areas. Or, post a Finale file containing a shortened excerpt.

N.

[motet]

I suspect tdlucas wants equal measure width throughout. Perhaps it's for a pedogogical purpose, otherwise I don't recommend it. But to achieve it, make sure systems are all locked, then with the measure tool select everything and in the measure attributes dialog change the width to something big, like 1,000.

[Peter Thomsen]

Also, you can - in the document settings for Music Spacing - set the same value for
Minimum Measure Width
and
Maximum Measure Width

Then, when you apply Music Spacing, all measures will get the same width.

[tdlucas]

Here is what I am trying to do. I need to get all the parts on three pages each, which means I've got to squeeze everything into 7 or 8 measures per staff. It takes a lot of time to move every measure one at a time.

[Peter Thomsen]

In that case I would not make all the measures of equal width.

An example:
In your attached screen shot I would give the two One-Bar Repeat measures less width than the other measures.

Generally, music spacing should help making enough room for the music.
To get more room, try a lower scaling factor.
The default scaling (= Fibonacci spacing) uses a scaling factor of 1.618 (the golden ratio).
For a tighter spacing, try something like 1.414 (square root of 2).
Many professionally engraved examples of “tight” spacing seem to be spaced with a scaling factor of 1.4 or something like that.

Something else to consider:
If the spacing is “too tight”, it might be better to scale everything down by a few percent.

[tdlucas]

That's what I do: I use the handles to minimize the width of the repeat measures. Then I have to manually adjust the remaining measures. I wish there was a way to tell Finale to make all repeat measures a maximum size.

[Peter Thomsen]

Try this:
Measure Tool.
Select the repeated measures, via click and Shift-click.
Double-click the selected region.
In the Measure Attributes, set the measure width to something small.
Try e. g. something like 36pt.

Then, all the selected measures will get a width of 36 Points.

[motet]

I set Document options / Music spacing / Minimum measure width = 0 and that seems to work well for me. It also makes empty measures smaller.

[tdlucas]

That really helped. Many thanks!