Page format dialogue staff height

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David Ward
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Finale Version: F 25.5 & 26.3
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Post by David Ward » Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:12 pm

Even after 20 years of using Finale, I remain confused by this part of the page format dialogue.

The units are cms (except the first at the top which seems obstinately to remain in inches). I use a notional A4 for all Finale documents, but this file is actually printed to either B4 or A3. The information I want from this dialogue is the actual stave height when printed to B4 and A3 (or indeed to A4). If I change the page size at the top of the dialogue, all the other figures stay the same, and I'm pretty sure that the figure shown here for stave height is wrong even for A4.

Question: how do I calculate the actual stave height in cms for different A and B page sizes?

I have a copy of this score in front of me printed to B4 and the stave height looks to be between 0.4 cm and 0.45 cm, which is small but legible for the conductor. Nothing in the dialogue seems to suggest this stave size in B4 (at least to me).
Finale 25.5 & 26.3
Mac 10.13.6 & 10.14.6


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motet
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Post by motet » Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:25 pm

I once studied and understood this, but it's been a long time.

I don't think the paper size matters, so you need to change the scaling depending on which size paper you use.

The nominal staff height is 96 EVPUs or 24 points or 0.85 cm. I think "Scale System to" and "Staff Height" essentially do the same thing. In your picture, you'd apply Resulting System Scaling to that nominal .85 cm. to get .35 cm. for the printed staff height.

EDIT: Scale System to (not Scale Page to) in the last paragraph.

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David Ward
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Post by David Ward » Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:49 pm

Thanks, I think I sort of understand!

Once I have the stave height for A4 then it should be simple enough to calculate the height when printed to B4 or A3 by multiplying it by the B4 or A3 page height divided by the A4 page height. The people who usually print my scores make the appropriate % adjustment from my A4 file for the chosen paper size when printing (which works with the international A and B sizes, but would I think be problematical with US sizes).
Finale 25.5 & 26.3
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Peter Thomsen
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Post by Peter Thomsen » Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:54 pm

David Ward wrote:
Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:12 pm
… I'm pretty sure that the figure shown here for stave height is wrong even for A4 …
I suppose that you, by your words “the figure shown here for stave height” mean the number 0.48066cm (= shown in your screen shot, in the field Staff Height), right?


1) As motet says, the nominal staff height is 24pt (= 0.84667cm).
This means that a staff height of 24pt is - in “Finale-speak” - a staff scaling of 100 %.

Your staff height value of 0.48066cm equals 13.625pt which means a staff scaling of ca. 56 %


2) To get the actual height you must include the Scale System value of 73 %.
0.48066cm x 73 % = ca. 0.35cm
This means a total scaling of ca. 41 % - as Finale tells you in the bottom of the screen shot.
In Other Words:
0.84667cm x 41 % = ca. 0.35cm


3) To calculate the resulting height when the page size is increased to a bigger size (e. g. A3), multiply by the corresponding scaling factor.
To increase the page size from A4 to A3 (= the double area), multiply the height by the {square root of 2} (= 1.4142…).
0.35cm x 1.4142 = ca. 0.49cm
Mac OS X 12.6.9 (Monterey), Finale user since 1996

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motet
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Post by motet » Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:57 pm

Right, the ISO paper sizes all have the same height-to-width aspect ratio of 1.414:1 (too narrow for music, in my opinion!) so it's easy to convert from one to the other. With U.S. paper sizes you would need to compensate by having proportionally bigger or smaller margins in one direction or the other, or else slightly stretch it on one dimension (there's a limit to how much you can get away with, of course).

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David Ward
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Post by David Ward » Fri Jun 05, 2020 7:08 am

Peter Thomsen wrote:
Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:54 pm
3) To calculate the resulting height when the page size is increased to a bigger size (e. g. A3), multiply by the corresponding scaling factor.
To increase the page size from A4 to A3 (= the double area), multiply the height by the {square root of 2} (= 1.4142…).
0.35cm x 1.4142 = ca. 0.49cm
Right(!) on that basis the stave height for B4 should be 0.35cm x square root of 1.5 which is 1.225 = 0.43cm, which is sufficiently above Elaine Gould's 0.37cm minimum for a full score stave.

I had been wondering whether I should have this score printed to A3 as the B4 is legible but not large. However, A3 scores plus coil binding are much more difficult to carry around in cabin baggage &c (when that becomes relevant again).

It's seems a pity that this dialogue doesn't have an automatic way of showing the actual stave heights when scaled to different page sizes. I'm no expert, but I would expect that some automated computer formula could do this with nearly instant ease.
Finale 25.5 & 26.3
Mac 10.13.6 & 10.14.6

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