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| MakeMusic Forum > Public Forums > Finale - Macintosh - FORUM HAS MOVED! > two never-ending annoyances | Forum Quick Jump
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brucecoughlin
Registered Member
      
Date Joined Jan 2007
Total Posts : 53
| Posted 2/15/2009 11:53 AM (GMT -6) |   | There are two things about Finale that make me want to throw the computer out the window and which never get changed, version after version. I refuse to upgrade to any other version till someone can guarantee these quirks are gone.
I've asked about how to get these to work properly in the past, but never got a solution, but I'll try again:
-- When Finale adds a page it does not look at the last page of your score and duplicate the layout. The page margins situation is better in 2008 than in past versions, but it still does not duplicate the staff size percentages in your score. This is so annoying because it not only happens when you add your own pages, but also when Finale automatically adds pages as, for example, when you use FIT MEASURES and Finale needs to add pages to make it work. So then you have to go back to page one and do the percentage tool on every staff. It's so annoying. How hard a programming task is it to look at the page just before you add pages, make note of staff percentages and duplicate it on the added pages???
-- The other major PITA is whenever you make the slightest change to a measure (as in, for ex, dragging some music from one staff to another) it completely forgets that you went to all the trouble to make all the measures the same size on every page (by selecting all measures while in the Measure Tool and doubling clicking on bar 1, set width to 600, then command U). So after all of that if you make a change to a bar it completely resizes all the bars again. Then you have to go BACK and do the measure width process all over again. Brother....
Last I asked about these issues (it's been the same for years) the only response I got was: it's a pain but that's the way FINALE works. Has anything improved since then? Any way to get around this behavior? Is 2009 any better? If not I certainly don't need to pay an upgrade price for prettier slurs.
b
Finale 2008b
Mac OSX | | Back to Top | |
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Zuill
"The Troll"
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 29077
| Posted 2/15/2009 4:34 PM (GMT -6) | | As far as the second problem, I leave automatic spacing on and let Finale adjust things for me as I go. After I've entered everything, I lock the systems, optimize, and then, I do my manual adjustments (turning off automatic spacing if needed). I try to keep these to a minimum. If you want, you can bookmark these measures as you go to remember their location for future reference.
I find clients of mine that send me files for examination have spend too much time manually adjusting things early in a project. I spend most of my time removing all of those adjustments. I then only tweak spots that need it. There are usually fewer of those than one might think if you let Finale do the dirty work first.
Zuill
"When all is said and done, more is said than done."
Finale 2002b, 2003a, 2004b, 2005b, Win 2000 or XP
Favorite Forum quote: "Please, everybody, IGNORE THE TROLL!" | | Back to Top | |
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brucecoughlin
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2007
Total Posts : 53
| Posted 2/18/2009 9:36 AM (GMT -6) | | Thanks for the replies
Setting max and minimum widths in the Doc Music Spacing Options seems to do the trick. Thanks!
However, I DO have update page format for score checked. It does NOT remember staff percentage sizes. Unless there's a hidden preference somewhere that would include that in update page format. If Finale adds a page then staff sizes are 100% on the added pages and none of mine is 100% in my score. | | Back to Top | |
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brucecoughlin
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2007
Total Posts : 53
| Posted 3/2/2009 1:48 PM (GMT -6) | | Well, Wiggy, the point is that I don't want the same staff size for every staff. I'm an orchestrator and I don't use FINALE for orchestrating the music (though the copyists ultimately do). What I DO use it for is making my score paper for orchestrating (in pencil). So on a score with maybe 16 players I generally like the staff percentage to be 105%. It's just a width I'm comfortable writing on. Since the vocals are copy and pasted from a FINALE PV they don't need to be as large, perhaps 80%. And sometimes I'll have a reference piano part at the bottom which is from the PV but is purely for my own reference and can be quite small. Also 80% or even smaller.
So you see how annoying it is to set all that up and then when FINALE adds pages automatically they all come out to 100% even if some should be 80% and some 65%.
The reason I use fixed width measures is that if all the bars are blank for writing in pencil except the vocal line then FINALE will base the width on the vocal line alone. Now in the music the singer might be singing a whole note (or nothing at all) but in fact when I orchestrate there will be a flurry of notes in that bar. The easiest solution is to just have the bars all the same width. That also makes it easier later on to go back and make fix bars that are tapeable into the conductor's score. If I have fixed widths, then go to my ref pno part and drag something from the PV into my piano part then Finale readjusts the widths on the page. But then the copyist goes to tape in a fix bar into the conductor score and it doesn't fit. It's even more important for coma sopras because if I CS 8 bars in just the horns (but write new notes in the other parts) then it's MUCH easier for the copyist to go and xerox those bars and tape them in at the CS location and the final score is all neat and tidy for the conductor. | | Back to Top | |
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Dr. Wiggy
Early music: modern methods
Date Joined Jun 2006
Total Posts : 12628
| Posted 3/3/2009 5:39 AM (GMT -6) | | brucecoughlin said...
So you see how annoying it is to set all that up and then when FINALE adds pages automatically they all come out to 100% even if some should be 80% and some 65%.
The overall page magnification (and indeed paper size) will be at the percentage specified in Page Format. However, from what I understand, you want some, but not all, staves to be at different percentages. Yes, you are right that if you set the % reduction for a staff and then add measures (and hence pages), then the new pages don't have the reduced staff height.
You should submit a request to MM that percentage staff reductions are continued on new pages, as I imagine that you work in a way that has not been envisaged by the program's creators. The general scheme is that page layout is dealt with after all the notes have been entered.
Peter's suggestion for clicking on the staffs concerned with the % tool and clicking OK is the most straightforward. Perhaps you could create a Finalescript which would automate this for you, as you add pages?
What's a PV, by the way?
Finale 2009b, 2Ghz iMac, OS X 10.5.6, M-Audio Audiophile USB
M-Audio Oxygen 61; Yamaha PSR-410
Ancient Groove Music
www.ancientgroove.co.uk | | Back to Top | |
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brucecoughlin
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2007
Total Posts : 53
| Posted 3/9/2009 11:38 AM (GMT -6) | | PV = piano/vocal
used in shows. I get a PV from rehearsal and orchestrate from that. | | Back to Top | |
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