There are essentially two ways to create a mid-score pickup measure within Finale.

The easiest way is to use the Plugin>>Split Measure option. The more involved way entails manually setting the time signature for the two measures to create the look and correct playback of a mid-score pickup.

I have created a video that demonstrates the two options!

Continued

In the first post about creating the pickup measure we talked about using the automatic option found under the Document Menu.

This is the easiest way to create the pickup measure, but it will not playback correctly (it will still count the full measure worth of beats), there is very little control over the individual beat spacing of the measure, and staff styles do not display correctly (this is most often seen when applying a staff style that is tied to the measures time signature like rhythm or slash notation).

The “real” way to create pickup measures is to simply change the pickup measure’s time signature to reflect the actual amount of beats that comprise the pickup.  Then apply the “Use a Different Time Signature for Display” option to keep the original time signature for display.  This will playback correctly and give you complete control over the spacing.

It is a few extra steps, but having the control is worth it.