Opaque Multimeasure numbers - is this Possible in Finale?

[BugleMe]

Hello,
I am running Finale 2014.5 on a Mac using OS High Sierra 10.13.6
Happy Fathers Day to All the Fathers out there!!!
In my attempts to increase the Real Estate in my parts, I have lowered the multi-measure numbers into the staff. What I’d like to do is to make the numbers easier to read by putting some opaqueness around them. I am enclosing 2 examples.
1. as it is now

Screen Shot 2020-06-21 at 10.25.15.png

2. as I’d like it to be (did this in Photo Shop). So my question is… is this possible?

Screen Shot 2020-06-21 at 10.32.01.png

Thanks for your help!
BugleMe

[Peter Thomsen]

It can be done - via a workaround:

Add a shape expression with the number.
In the Shape Designer, add a rectangle with zero Line Width.
Fill the rectangle with White, and send it to Back.
The opaque rectangle will now appear behind the number.
The rectangle will not mask the number, but it will mask the staff-lines.

* See the attached demo document.

MultimeasureRest-OpaqueNumber.musx

[motet]

Very cool, Peter. I wonder if it's possible to add such an opaque rectangle to the multimeasure rest shape itself.

[BugleMe]

Thanks for your reply Peter. That method is not very practical for me since I'd have many such multi-measure rest numbers to affect like the one you showed in your example. What I guess I am hoping for is some way to affect the multi-measure numbers globally in a document so that they all appear with an opaque border/halo around them.

[Peter Thomsen]

You could - instead - add the “Filled-with-White” rectangle to the shape used for a multimeasure rest.

That will work - as you can see in the attached Finale document.

MultimeasureRest-OpaqueNumber-Shape.musx

However, the multimeasure rest shape will stretch horizontally with the multimeasure rest width.
Thus, as the multimeasure rest gets wider, the “Filled-with-White” rectangle will also get wider, and stretch out on both sides of the number.

Try - in the attached Finale document - increasing the multimeasure rest’s width to e. g. 360pt.
And you will see what I mean.

However, if you keep all multimeasure rests at the same width, then this “multimeasure rest shape” trick will work.

[BugleMe]

Hello Peter, it's taken me a while to answer your reply because it's taken me some time to understand and then experiment with your example. I must admit that I have rarely used the shape designer and don't really know how to use it. I have taken this opportunity to mess around with it and now think I understand it much better. Your solution, an elegant one, works as a case by case basis but is not the global fix that I was hoping for in having all multimeasure numbers look the same as that which this method solves. I did notice that if I left the box "allow horizontal drag" unchecked, then there was no problem when a multimeasure rest was stretched either way. Thanks for your help in trying to solve my issue!
BugleMe

[Peter Thomsen]

BugleMe,

I gave you two solutions:

1) Adding an expression with opaque background rectangle.

2) Adding the opaque background rectangle to the Multimeasure Rest shape.

I am not sure which solution you are talking about.

In solution 1) the expression should have {Allow Horizontal Stretching} de-selected.
By default Finale selects this option, so you must de-select it.

In solution 2) the opaque rectangle will stretch with the Multimeasure Rest shape.
However, you could - in the same Finale document - use several different Multimeasure Rest shapes, with different {opaque rectangle} widths.
So that you - in the case of a wide stretched Multimeasure Rest - use another shape with a narrower rectangle.