Finale Forum

Up to now I've never had a reason to delve more deeply into how to edit chords in Finale. So, possibly I'm asking something well known to others.
In a PDF from Sibelius this is how chord symbols look: In the conversion to Finale it looks like this: What I'd expected is that the 'm' in the suffix would be larger and on the baseline, and the rest of the suffix, '7' and 'maj7' smaller and superscript. At least Sibelius has a smaller digit and the superscript.

Now, I know one way to change this in Finale, but just one suffix, and one character at a time, which needless to say is not very practicable.

Does anyone here know of a smarter approach to this, possibly a plugin unknown to me? (I have most of JW plugins, and TG Tools - the purchased version.)

You could use the "Change gap between chord symbol and all suffixes on all chords" plug-in:
https://elbsound.studio/jw-lua-scripts. ... gechordgap
which is included in the Elbsound Music Font Package and in the Elbsound Text Font Package.

You need to do three minor changes to the cord:

Currently it changes the horizontal position of all elements to adjust the distance between the root and the suffix.
If you replace HorizontalOffset with VerticalOffset, it does exactly what you're looking for.

It affects all chord symbols (chord ID 1 to 1500). But if you restrict it to a certain selection (like 50 to 100), it only adjusts those chords that you want it to.

As the plug-in also affects the actual chord position, replace
c.ChordHorizontalPos= ...
with
--c.ChordHorizontalPos=...

Jan

Another thing to try:

It's possible that the Sibelius conversion added "new" suffixes (the m7 and maj 7) to the suffix library. You can find out by looking in the chord suffix window. If these are at the end of the list, it might be that they are duplicates and do not match Finale's default suffixes. To swap them out, select one, hit the delete button, select "replace with" and navigate to the suffix in Finale's default selection at the top of the list.

elbsound wrote: ↑

Tue May 17, 2022 2:19 pm

You could use the "Change gap between chord symbol and all suffixes on all chords" plug-in:
https://elbsound.studio/jw-lua-scripts. ... gechordgap
which is included in the Elbsound Music Font Package and in the Elbsound Text Font Package.

Thanks for your reply, Jan! You mention two packages. Do I need both to do this, and how do they interact?

N Grossingink wrote: ↑

Tue May 17, 2022 7:02 pm

It's possible that the Sibelius conversion added "new" suffixes (the m7 and maj 7) to the suffix library. You can find out by looking in the chord suffix window. If these are at the end of the list, it might be that they are duplicates and do not match Finale's default suffixes. To swap them out, select one, hit the delete button, select "replace with" and navigate to the suffix in Finale's default selection at the top of the list.

I'm afraid the suffixes placed all on the bottom line is a Finale feature. It doesn't matter if they were imported or not. Also when I create new suffixes, they appear the same way. Neither I nor collegues of mine could find a way to edit this globally in Finale.

When it comes to plugins, I'm waiting. Jan had an interesting tip which I haven't been able to test yet.

Maybe you should consider creating your own chord suffix library to your taste. Then you can load it in your files, replacing the existing one.
Soon (hopefully) on Windows (already available on the Mac), a great RGP Lua script "Chord Kerner" (by Michael McClennan) makes things easier, even if it has to be done for each suffix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzmB--fm8Qo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBFV1eStVvA
(no sound)

Anders Hedelin wrote: ↑

Wed May 18, 2022 12:54 pm

You mention two packages. Do I need both to do this, and how do they interact?

No, you just need one of the packages. The script is included in both packages.

Thanks. I will try it.