Finale Forum

I'm curious as to why I should find this font problem (see screenshot). I can solve it by retyping on one line and then copying to the others with the edit filter appropriately set. The file was created in Finale 2010 probably with OS 10.6.8, but shows this when opened in F 25.5 with OS 10.13.6. It's only a minor irritation, except that this is part of an opera with very large vocal forces in 16 Finale files, some rather large. The oddities occur where the option key has been used to get smart apostrophes & quotes, hard hyphens and emm dashes.

Is it a Finale problem or an OS one? Or some combination of both? I get the correct result when I type exactly what I typed before, but now in Finale 25.

I'm also getting some oriental characters in a few tempo indications, but these need revision anyway so not too frustrating.

The whole piece is a monster and currently a bit of a Mussorgsky-like shambles. It's a political ‘quasi-Russian opera’ (but set in early Victorian England) with monumental turba choruses, a huge collection of named roles (some tiny) and more. Nevertheless, I suspect it is worth un-shambling.

This might have been due to the change Finale made to Unicode font support.

Zuill

Yes. I've experienced this especially in old files with metronome markings: the tempo has become Chinese characters and if I don't have a PDF of the file, I've no idea what the tempo was supposed to be.

I have a similar problem with a font called MetTimes, a Times text font with added musical symbols (accidentals, swing tempo indications, etc.). The older Finale files (2010) open with the flat symbol displaying as "ø". I can change them in one fell swoop using Text Search and Replace (Edit Menu). I just set it to search for "ø", and replace with "¯". "¯" is the plain text character for the flat symbol.

Might be worth trying in order to restore the incorrect characters.

N.

Thank you: at least I'm not alone in this.

Trouble with search and replace is that I've no idea what I should replace the Chinese characters with.

Vaughan wrote:Trouble with search and replace is that I've no idea what I should replace the Chinese characters with.

What happens if you change the font of the Chinese characters to Hellvetica? Can you see Roman type?

N.

Can you do anything with this?

Allegro 浻焠㴠挠ㄠ〲⁽

I copied your text into Text Edit. Those characters are in a font called PingFang SC. It's a system font, so it cannot be disabled or removed. They resolutely resist being changed into any other font. What a mess!

N.

Indeed. Thanks, Finale!

Vaughan wrote:Indeed. Thanks, Finale!

The Text Search & Replace utility is actually quite good. You can specify which characters to change, and filter only lyrics. Or try converting the whole thing to a different font and back.

I can't figure out how to do that. When I select the above metronome marking in the Expression Designer window, it says that the font is Engraver Time Garamond, which is obviously impossible since that font only has a few characters and none of them is Chinese! I tried setting Text Search and Replace to look for the PingFang SC font and replace it with Engraver Time Garamond, but it couldn't find it. I'm curious if anyone can find a way to convert these cryptic expressions.

I'll happily take a look for you if you send me the file.

The marking I posted about 5 posts above this one is exactly as it appears in my score. Could you try it with that first? it behaves the same in a text editor as in Finale.

I just ordered a 64-bit computer and thought I'd finally upgrade Finale as a result. This gives me second thoughts. I wonder what other nasty surprises besides this I'm in for? What is wrong with their QA department? Does it even occur to them to open an old file and make sure they didn't break anything? They would make more money off of me if they were more reliable. As it is, I only upgrade occasionally and reluctantly.

One thing to find out is this is a Mac only issue. Sometimes these things are not found in Windows as the changes from version to version are quite limited. It may be less of Finale issue, and more of a Mac OS issue.

Zuill

OK, thanks for that.

zuill wrote:One thing to find out is this is a Mac only issue.

From previous discussions on the old Make Music forum, I've gotten the distinct impression that these font rendering problems are indeed Mac only problems.

motet, you have Finale 2014.5. In my experience, 2014 versions were hardest hit with the problem, and it continued in Finale 25. You can do a test right now that might be of some reassurance. Just open some older Finale files (your 2005) in 2014.5 and take a close look. Some things to check:

√ Page text (title, composer, etc.) especially if the fonts you use are different than the usual Times, Palatino, etc.
√ Lyrics, especially European accented characters.
√ Articulations—look at each in the selection box. If there is a problem, you might see odd non-musical symbols in a default system font. A typical problem is the accent over tenuto - > and accent over staccato. It might appear as something entirely different.

If you pass these tests, I'd say you're going to be OK.


N.

Thanks--will do. I appreciate it.