Position of accidental

[David Ward]

I think there was a recent thread about this, but I can't seem to find it.

Question: am I right in thinking that Finale is wrong to place the natural so far from the lower B in the cue and that I am right to move it closer? (First as placed by Finale, second as adjusted by me.)

[RMK]

Absolutely.

[michelp]

Here is the thread : viewtopic.php?f=5&t=20128.
Perfect Layout fixes it.

[Bill Stevens]

Michel,

Did you try Pefect Layout? I tried it and it did not fix this case, but perhaps I had a wrong setting.

::: Bill

[michelp]

No, I didn't, just echoed the discussion and Jan's suggestion.

[John Ruggero]

Reducing the size of the notes as cue notes seems to exaggerate the distance between the top accidentals so that the B-flat is a little too far from the E-flat and from the note head for my taste. Document options>Accidentals>Space Between Accidentals on Note: 0.00694 produces a result that looks better to me for all sizes.

[miker]

John,

Have you considered using EVPUs as measurement units? Your .00694 inches converts to 1.99872 EVPUS, or, close enough to 2 to make no nevermind.

[John Ruggero]

Thanks Mike for guessing that I meant inches since I didn't specify measure units. I used inches because I was using the Finale Default file to experiment with the various distances. Actually I use various units in my own templates, often "spaces", rarely EVPUs. But 2 EVPUs is a convenient measurement to remember.

[BuonTempi]

I've always favoured Points as my unit in Finale. Firstly, because I'm an old-school typographic nerd, but most of us have experience of drawing lines in apps to point sizes.

Large fractions of an inch are nice numbers like 36, 45, 60, even if that's a little opaque at first; lines tend to be easy fractions: 0.5, 0.625, 1.25, etc.

But I have difficulty visualising the difference between tiny inch fractions (to five decimal places!). I wouldn't have a clue how big 0.00694 is, but 0.5pt, I know. (EVPUs are quarter-points.)

I've always been a bit scared of using spaces: I can never remember whether it's 1 space at the reference height, or when/whether it's relative to the actual staff size. Or whether it matters...

[Peter Thomsen]

FWIW:
I, too, prefer Points as Measurement Units.

No matter what is currently selected as Measurement Units, you always (in any dialog box field) can enter values in any Measurement Units, by adding one or more letters after the number:
1c = 1 Centimeter (or 1cm, or 1centimeters)
1m = 1 Millimeter (or 1mm, or 1millimeters)
1i = 1 Inch (or 1", or 1in, or 1inch, or 1inches) = 6p (6 Picas)
1p = 1 Pica (or 1pi, or 1picas) = 2s (2 Spaces)
1s = 1 Space (or 1sp, or 1spaces) = 6pt (6 Points)
1 pt = 1 Point (or 1pts, or 1points) = 4e (4 EVPUs)
1e = 1 EVPU (or 1evpus, or 1EVPUs)


NB:
When you’re overriding the global setting in this way, you even have an extra unit option (millimeters) not available in the sub-menu for Measurement Units.

[elbsound]

The Perfect Layout plug-in for Finale doesn't solve this issue yet. It only improves the horizontal accidental placement if the chord includes seconds -as described in the thread that Michel mentions.

Perfect Layout's accidental correction is described here:
https://elbsound.studio/perfect-layout/ ... alignment6


I wasn't aware of this Finale issue yet. Interestingly Finale places the bottom accidental correctly if you lower the bottom pitch by a second. This accidental placement seems to be independent of Finale's Document Options->Accidentals->Minimum Vertical Spacing Between Accidentals. Looks like a Finale bug.
I'll check if I can add this to Perfect Layout, but first I need to figure out the rule behind this bug as Finale doesn't give access to the exact accidental position. Only if I know exactly how "this bug works", I can try to find a solution.

[David_]

FWIW:
I, too, prefer Points as Measurement Units.

No matter what is currently selected as Measurement Units, you always (in any dialog box field) can enter values in any Measurement Units, by adding one or more letters after the number:
1c = 1 Centimeter (or 1cm, or 1centimeters)
1m = 1 Millimeter (or 1mm, or 1millimeters)
1i = 1 Inch (or 1", or 1in, or 1inch, or 1inches) = 6p (6 Picas)
1p = 1 Pica (or 1pi, or 1picas) = 2s (2 Spaces)
1s = 1 Space (or 1sp, or 1spaces) = 6pt (6 Points)
1 pt = 1 Point (or 1pts, or 1points) = 4e (4 EVPUs)
1e = 1 EVPU (or 1evpus, or 1EVPUs)


NB:
When you’re overriding the global setting in this way, you even have an extra unit option (millimeters) not available in the sub-menu for Measurement Units.

Thank you, Peter. That is really handy to know

[elbsound]

I have looked a bit further into this Finale issue.
It seems to be the "octave rule". Accidentals on octaves placed at the same horizontal position might be easier to read.
But obviously not in David's case where they have different accidentals.

Anyway, this is what Finale produces by default: only on the octave (as in David's original example) they appear at the same horizontal position.

Or does anybody have another solution of what Finale does here?