Copying parts from one score to another in Finale is CRAP

[Leland]

I will take these one at a time:

1. You are copying text and not the justification of the text. Why not just duplicate the file and work from there? If you are using "Word" and copy text that is justified to the center of the page and then paste into another file the text does not center justify. I am not sure Finale is unlike any program in this instance.

2. Music and everything associated with each note can be dragged and dropped, but not text. Maybe they need to improve this!

3. I am not sure what you are saying here. I make scores and extract parts all day long and do not have these issues. 11x17, 8.5x11, landscape, portrait, etc. Maybe try justifying to margin or page. A change my solve your problem.

1. Why should I have tell it that, yes, "copy" means that I want it to look the same way on the other document? Even if Word behaves like this, I think it's counterproductive. I would much prefer to drag-and-drop like other objects in other programs, though.

2. I should have clarified that I'm talking about dragging & dropping from one document to another, especially items like the title, copyright info at the footer, and other things like that. Finale should get with the 1990's and allow work to be done that way.

3. What I meant was, I'll have a score on an 8.5 x 14 layout, landscape-stye, with a date, title, and arranger/composer info across the top, and copyright info at the bottom. Then, after extracting parts, the parts themselves (on 8.5 x 11, portrait) end up with those items completely out of place, especially the arranger info being to the far right about five inches off the paper and the copyright info just about as far below the paper. Surely Finale doesn't think to put those things on the page, so I have to spend more of my time fixing each part.

Other non-musical layout applications have nice things like centering lines (so that when you drag something, you can place it perfectly in the center of the page), can drag & drop anything from one document to another, and resize objects with only the mouse.

I can't believe I am actually trying to defend Finale. You should see my posts on the Finale forum. They are the complete opposite of what I post here!

[Chuck(G)]

Here's Sibelius 4 with the chord text font set to Arial:

[BVD Press]

Here's Sibelius 4 with the chord text font set to Arial:

Awsome! I could have used this several years ago!!

[BVD Press]

I will take these one at a time:

1. You are copying text and not the justification of the text. Why not just duplicate the file and work from there? If you are using "Word" and copy text that is justified to the center of the page and then paste into another file the text does not center justify. I am not sure Finale is unlike any program in this instance.

2. Music and everything associated with each note can be dragged and dropped, but not text. Maybe they need to improve this!

3. I am not sure what you are saying here. I make scores and extract parts all day long and do not have these issues. 11x17, 8.5x11, landscape, portrait, etc. Maybe try justifying to margin or page. A change my solve your problem.

1. Why should I have tell it that, yes, "copy" means that I want it to look the same way on the other document? Even if Word behaves like this, I think it's counterproductive. I would much prefer to drag-and-drop like other objects in other programs, though.

2. I should have clarified that I'm talking about dragging & dropping from one document to another, especially items like the title, copyright info at the footer, and other things like that. Finale should get with the 1990's and allow work to be done that way.

3. What I meant was, I'll have a score on an 8.5 x 14 layout, landscape-stye, with a date, title, and arranger/composer info across the top, and copyright info at the bottom. Then, after extracting parts, the parts themselves (on 8.5 x 11, portrait) end up with those items completely out of place, especially the arranger info being to the far right about five inches off the paper and the copyright info just about as far below the paper. Surely Finale doesn't think to put those things on the page, so I have to spend more of my time fixing each part.

Other non-musical layout applications have nice things like centering lines (so that when you drag something, you can place it perfectly in the center of the page), can drag & drop anything from one document to another, and resize objects with only the mouse.

I can't believe I am actually trying to defend Finale. You should see my posts on the Finale forum. They are the complete opposite of what I post here!

1. Are there programs that you can drag and drop objects and it maintains the justification etc. from the previous documents? I have not seen them, but depending upon what one is doing it could surely save time! You probably know and use them, but a few keyboard shortcuts and you can get text anywhere you would like. In regards to your last paragraph, you can turn a grid or the ruler on. Or just use the shortcuts to put test on the left, right, center or any other place on the page.

2. Nothing for 2. I agree with you!

3. Do you happen to be using Finale 2007? I will see what I can up with that might help you. I generally don't make ladscape scores, but I have and did not have these issues with the parts. Either that or I don't remember. At this point, I can't even remember what I did on a piece last week.

The last paragraph: To get exact locations, don't drag and drop. Use the keyboard shortcuts or type in a number or coordinate of the exact location you would like something to appear on the page. It may be a pain, but if you would like to be 100% exact these are the best options.

Chuck: For text in Sibelius, if you copy and paste from one document to another do the justifications go with the text like Leland is trying to do in Finale? Just curious.

Take care,

[Leland]

All I really want is for a music notation program to behave more like a page layout program when it's needed. It would be great for it to have some common sense, too, like not trying to put several elements on top of each other (such as a rehearsal number, tempo marking, and a dynamic marking from the staff above).

Most of my beefs come from having to clean up parts after extracting them from scores. I feel insulted, really, when I see a newly extracted part that is flat-out illegible. It makes me think that the programmers just don't care. I can imagine some "power user"-type settings to tweak a sheet's appearance, but at the very least, it should be good enough to read right away.

[Chuck(G)]

Chuck: For text in Sibelius, if you copy and paste from one document to another do the justifications go with the text like Leland is trying to do in Finale? Just curious.

As far as I can tell, yes. I opened the sample orchestral "Film Score" in the Sibelius sample documents and ctrl-clicked the boxed notation, as well as all of the other fields on the header. Then Ctrl-C to copy to clipboard.

Created a new score for guitar, clicked on first measure and then Ctrl-V pasted. Everything came through exactly where it was on the original.

As far as pasting new parts, I do this all of the time when I'm changing instruments. Create the new instrument, triple click, then Ctrl-X the old, then Ctrl-V paste onto the new instrument.

What I like about Sibelius over Finale, is that Sibelius is largely non-modal, where with Finale, I've got to figure out the right mode to do what I want.

If it's good enough for Philip Sparke, it'll certainly work for me.

Cheers,
Chuck

[Leland]

3. Do you happen to be using Finale 2007? I will see what I can up with that might help you. I generally don't make ladscape scores, but I have and did not have these issues with the parts. Either that or I don't remember. At this point, I can't even remember what I did on a piece last week.

Actually, we're on 2006 -- bought it in the middle of summer last year, then heard about 2007 not even two weeks after getting 2006 installed.

Which reminds me of another gripe: not being able to save a document in 2006 and making it compatible with earlier versions of Finale. We tried everything, and called up Finale to ask if it was possible. Nope.

Forced upgrades never sit well with me.

[Leland]

remind me not to show interest in your billet!!!

I think I'll sucker some other FNG into it...

[gwwilk]

Have I mentioned that I'm glad I don't use Finale after reading all of this?
It made my head hurt really bad.

Amen, bro!

[Dennis K.]

Man, a lot of rancor about Finale.

I use Finale '03 daily. Every issue mentioned thus far is an easy fix, but you must actually know the program.
Engraving is not easy. Doing it really well is even more difficult.

People who post "I have Notepad, and it sucks, so I will never use Finale" are just screaming ignorance.

If you have an issue with Finale, why not ask one of the pro's like Bryan, rather than get your knickers in a twist and blame the program for your ignorance? Just because you own the program doesn't mean you can use it effectively.

Personally, I don't care if you use Finale or Sibelius, PC or Mac, whatever.

Finale may have a steep learning curve. But it works extremely well, and it is the industry standard tool for modern professional engravers.


BTW - for the text coming out in odd places for music that has a different size score and parts:

Text Tool
enter your text in the score.
choose the text frame (mark the little square box at the edge of the text frame)
alt - x - a - t (justifies top)
alt - x - a - r (justifies right)
ctrl - Shift - t (brings up text frame attributes)
Attach it to whatever pages you want.

For the different page sizes:
Go to File
Page set up for score.
Set what you like.
Go to File
Page set up for parts
Set what you like.

When the frames are justified, they will adjust themselves according to the margins of the page, not show up whereever you dragged them to.

Took me longer to type it then it takes me to do it.

[Leland]

BTW - for the text coming out in odd places for music that has a different size score and parts:

That's an example of what gets on my nerves so much. This isn't the 1980's anymore; there's not really any excuse for a program with the intelligence of a box of rocks. Finale shouldn't even do things like putting text boxes five inches away from the print area or pile elements on top of each other. Most of my time is spent fixing what Finale screws up because it has no common sense of its own.

If this were a human assistant instead, it would be like telling him to extract, put this here (where it should be anyway), put that there (again, where that should be), uncluster those markings, etc etc etc.... and then having to tell him each step of the process again for the next instrument's part. Jeez... I would fire a person like that.

(tangent) Notepad doesn't "suck"; it's crippled on purpose. And, it's just a "notepad" for writing down some music, IMO -- but for that role it should really have speedy entry, too.

[Dennis K.]

Finale has an "Avoid collision of" dialogue box.

In some cases, one might not want to avoid a collision - like when creating something like an "FFp" marking.
there are other ways to do it, too.

I understand your frustration. It also sounds like you want the program to do the work for you. That would be nice. If you want a program to do all the layout for you, then you will necessarily cede to whatever the programmer thinks is good music notation. Chances are, the programmer is not a copyist. And there are programs that will take all the work out of it for you. But then you lose the flexibility and control over the little things.
You may not need that control. I do.
I have also taken the time to learn the program in depth. I'd be glad to post a page of some recent work if I could figure out how to stick a PDF in here.

(sheeesh - I'm a master of Finale, but don't know how to post a PDF)

BTW - once you have you page setup the way you like it, including default fonts, score & parts size, line thickness, how to handle collisions, etc - save it as a template and you will never have to mess with that stuff again, unkless you choose to change it.

[Leland]

Finale has an "Avoid collision of" dialogue box.

And it doesn't work -- I've tried.

I understand what you're saying, though. It just seems like there's not much call for odd layouts or weird symbols in a whole lot of music I've seen, and certainly none of the stuff we're playing. A plain old set of rules should suffice.

And, I don't see any reason why a copyist (or several) couldn't get together with the programmer(s) and hash this stuff out. You say that it would be nice for the program to do the layout, so I'm saying, why shouldn't it do the layout? They have the tools, they have the talent...

(sorry about the Ghostbusters line.. lol)

[tbn.al]

scan the original part in and just have it do do what I ask automatically. Is there any program that does this out there?

The best I have seen is the newest version of Sibelius/Photoscore. A typical 2 page part for a church orchestra chart takes me about half an hour to scan, correct scanning errors, transpose, edit and print. I do a bunch of it and that is my BEST time.

[tbn.al]

As far as pasting new parts, I do this all of the time when I'm changing instruments. Create the new instrument, triple click, then Ctrl-X the old, then Ctrl-V paste onto the new instrument.

What I like about Sibelius over Finale, is that Sibelius is largely non-modal, where with Finale, I've got to figure out the right mode to do what I want.
Chuck

Amen Brother! Preach on! I used an early version of Finale at church and had an early version of Sibelius at home for about 6 months. I finally told the church I would do all my score work at home, thank you! For a time Finale had the edge over Sibelius in engraving quality but I don't think so anymore, and Sibelius is so much more intuitive.