Finale Forum

So I use the staff tool to adjust staves, usually to fit in something like a hairpin, multiple markings for dynamics, etc. Generally there are no issues, but occasionally I'll be trying to drag one staff up or down, and others tag along with it. I'm careful to make sure only that individual staff is selected, but it doesn't seem to matter; resulting in lots of wasted time constantly having to readjust. What am I missing in terms of doing this properly so I am assured of just moving the one staff at a time?

What you describe is the default behavior.
To move just 1 staff vertically (not the ones below), hold down the Alt key while dragging the handle (Alt works on the Mac).

The default behavior makes sense, since usually you want to preserve spacing between other staves.

On the other hand, if by "the others drag along with it" you mean that staff in all systems, that happens if you double-click and drag, which it's possible to do by mistake.

Nope, that nailed it! Alt-key was the answer. Perfect....problem solved. I can understand why it's the default behavior, but in my case I need to make these adjustments all the time and this makes my job much easier and simpler. Thanks!