Switch horizontal alignment of chord notes

[rjawad1]

What's the proper way to deal with this problem? I've been just moving the notes left and right using the Note Position Tool. Is there a better way?

[Bill Stevens]

I assume you want the dotted quarter to the right of the whole note. For me that's what happens when I enter the notes. I'm using 27.4 on a Mac.

::: Bill

[rjawad1]

I tried deleting everything and putting in voice 2 first, and I still get the same behavior where the dotted quarter lines up on the wrong side. I guess I'm asking how to switch the horizontal orientation if they do end up wrong without sliding them manually. Is there a toggle or something like that?

[miker]

Like Bill, they went in correctly for me. I don't have Auto Music Spacing turned on. On entry, the notes on beat one overlapped, but after applying music spacing (CMD-4) they jumped to this:

[motet]

I get rjwad1's result with Finale 2014.5 but Bill and Mike's result with Finale 27.4.1.110 (Windows). Can this have changed between 27.2 and 27.4?

[miker]

Maybe it’s one of those “under the hood” fixes that they (claim to) make and don’t tell anyone.

Or maybe it was an accident. Hard to tell, these days…

And an off-the-cuff question, as I sit here looking at it. Assuming a 4/4 time signature, wouldn’t it be more correct to notate the layer one notes as the dotted quarter and then an eighth note tied to a half?

[motet]

Finale's "inter-layer" spacing has been improved of late, no?

[Bill Stevens]

You said you put in voice 2 first in one of your posts. Are you using voices rather than layers? If so, you might try layers. But I tried voices and it turned out fine.

::: Bill

[motet]

The colors in the op's picture suggest layers.

[rjawad1]

Yes, I meant layers, not voices. The way I divided the tie (3+2 instead of 1+4) makes more sense in the context. It may not be the standard way to do it.

So, what I'm hearing is that I should probably just update Finale, which means I will need to deal with that [“Finale (Autoupdate).app” is damaged and can’t be opened. You should move it to the Trash.] message.

[rjawad1]

I updated to 27.4.1 and still am having the same problem. I tried cmd+4. I also tried Utilities > > Music Spacing > Apply Music Spacing to Score > Note Spacing.

[Peter Thomsen]

I updated to 27.4.1 and still am having the same problem. I tried cmd+4. I also tried Utilities > > Music Spacing > Apply Music Spacing to Score > Note Spacing.

I wonder whether the problem happens in all documents - or only in specific documents (= the problem is document specific) ?

If the problem is document specific, then take a look in
Document menu > Document Options > Music Spacing

In the pop up menu for Manual Positioning, what menu item is chosen ?
You may be able to solve the problem by choosing ‘Clear’.

When the problem is solved, you can always change the Manual Positioning setting to the setting you need for your workflow.

[rjawad1]

Thanks, Peter, for the debugging info. I found a workaround for now. I just switched layers 1 and 2, and it looks fine. It's an isolated case, but if it comes up again, I'll revisit your post.

[BuonTempi]

So, what I'm hearing is that I should probably just update Finale, which means I will need to deal with that [“Finale (Autoupdate).app” is damaged and can’t be opened. You should move it to the Trash.] message.

That is certainly not a consequence of updating Finale. That message sometimes appears if you've migrated Finale to a new computer from an old one; and some other circumstances: but you should not get it just by downloading an update.