Font issues in Finale 27

[Jonathan]

Hi,
I recently upgraded to Finale version 27. Now, when I create a tempo mark, there is a tremendous amount of space between the lines if I want the metronome marking on a 2nd line. There are some other weird things about the music fonts looking big in some of the menus, but it's these tempo marks that bother me the most. I've attached a screenshot of what it looks like with all that extra space. Has anyone experienced this and found a solution?
Thanks in advance for any help.

Screenshot 2023-09-24 203858.png (28.41 KiB) Viewed 1619 times

Finale version 27.3.0.137, Windows 11

[motet]

Yes, it looks like they screwed up yet again.

To fix it, Document/Category designer/Tempo Marks, click the Music Font tab and change it to EngraverText T, 12 point, and you should be good to go.

[dtoub]

Honestly, I find trying to change note and text fonts for metronome markings to be horrific in Finale, period. It changes the baseline, or gives me weird glyphs instead of what I want, if I mix fonts. I've found workarounds, but they are clunky and a bear every time.

Which brings up a serious question I have: is Finale pretty much "end of lifed?" at this point? There's been no real development publicly or privately that I know of since that last update that mainly ported a few (not even a majority) of the much needed JW plugins.

I've not been asked to test any new versions, which is odd since that usually happened over the summer, nor have I heard of testing from anyone else.

Like many folks here, we have our own lists of much needed, long overdue, bug fixes and enhancements. It's insane that I feel like I'm part of a dwindling, dying community of Finale users, but that really is how I feel these days. I've been able to make Finale work for many years and can still do so, but it's often painful and needlessly laborious.

[motet]

It is unsettling. I've bought V. 26 and V. 27, but stay with 2014.5 because of all the new problems introduced since then, and, for my particular use, no gain.

I just posted on Facebook about the fact that File/Export/PDF is riddled with problems. There are fortunately other solutions to making PDFs, but unsuspecting users don't know that and end up wasting there time and/or concluding that Finale is junk. That's just one example of why market share is eroding away.

I keep hoping that someone else will buy it, who's willing to put the resources into making it better.

[dtoub]

Agree 100%.

I gave up on PDF exporting a while back and just use the graphics tool for that. It’s sad that we have to have this discussion at all.

[motet]

On Windows the Graphics tool has problems (though not as bad as Export), so I'm forced to use print-to-PDF.

[BuonTempi]

Which brings up a serious question I have: is Finale pretty much "end of lifed?" at this point? There's been no real development publicly or privately that I know of since that last update that mainly ported a few (not even a majority) of the much needed JW plugins.

It's been 299 days since the last release (2 Dec 2022), which is considerably longer than usual for a point update. A new release would be more likely at some point from now, given that F27 is now over 2 years old. Whether that comes before this year is out, who knows. (F26 was released in October, FWIW.)

You only have to take a look at MM's website, to see that "MakeMusic Cloud" is the focus, with Finale and Garritan being 'also-rans'. The Garritan blog's "Latest News" is dated 8 May 2019. The blurb on Finale reads "For more than 25 years...", when Finale is 35 this year.

What development there has been, has been small and glacial. The slur/artic improvements in 26 were a step in the right direction, though the implementation still has various "issues" that could have been avoided. Finale remains the only notation app where you have to manually move things out of the way to stop them colliding. Had they implemented some sort of avoidance 10 years ago, that might have been enough, at the very least, to stave off any user envy towards other products, (for the time being).

It's insane that I feel like I'm part of a dwindling, dying community of Finale users, but that really is how I feel these days.

Indeed. I haven't seen any recent testimonials online from former Dorico users, extolling the triumph of their decision to move to Finale...

Zombie Finale will never 'die'; but the real question is whether it remains the best notation tool for you. I suspect that for most, "familiarity" and "having hundreds of legacy documents" are the most compelling reasons, over and above any actually capabilities of the software itself, or those of its rivals.

Nowadays, our computers are doing facial recognition on our photos as a background task. Sibelius is implementing a series of workflows "powered by AI". Users are demanding more from software; and developers are giving users features that they didn't know were possible. The reliance on 'plug-ins' to fill gaps in the feature set will only go so far.

[Jonathan]

Thanks so much for the help. Motet, I tried your idea using Document/Category designer/Tempo Marks. When I switched to EngraverTextT, then the notes ended up as boxes, so I went to Finale Maestro Text, with smaller font for both that and the text. That sort of works, but I do see that my older files, when opened, do actually have EngraverTextT, so I guess if I used that and redid all of my tempo marks in the new file, it would be better.

Only thing is that when I create a brand new document, it defaults to the bad way again. It's odd that they'd make it so that people have to make this change for every new document in order for the software to work in a normal way.

[motet]

You can change whatever template is used when you create a new piece.

I have Finale 27 but don't use it. But when I tried and confirmed your problem with it, the switch to EngraverTextT worked for me, so I'm not sure why you got boxes.

[ebiggs1]

You only have to take a look at MM's website, to see that "MakeMusic Cloud" is the focus, with Finale and Garritan being 'also-rans'.

Totally agree but I feel this will back fire as did the first Smart Music app MM tried right before the COVID. We used it for homework assignments and a lot more when COVID raised its ugly head. Neither the parents nor kids liked it. We had to finally drop it.
If Finale keeps falling short of current music notation apps out there the MM cloud will suffer the same fate. These two basically rely on Finale notation.