If you are trying to enter in chords such as Cb or Fb in Cmajor, Finale will automatically respell the chords to the enharmonic equivalent, B and E due to the Simplify Spelling Option under the Chord Menu.

I run into clients who struggle with this automation all of the time.

To turn it off just go up to your Chord Menu and un-check Simplify Spelling!

See you in the score!

I am often surprised how many times I have run across a client that either does not know about, or just doesn’t use the main tool palette context menus.  These are the menus that you can get to by right-clicking (ctrl-click on Mac) on a highlighted measure.

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Although it is fairly common practice to beam 8th notes into groups of four in common time, there are times that you do not want Finale dictating this beaming for an entire document.

As with most aspects of Finale, this option can be easily undone.

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You have complete control over the size of the grace note within Finale.

Here is how:

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I get lots of questions about how to write stemless notes for use with Church hymns, melismas, etc.  Here is a real quick way to get rid of stems for particular notes in a region.  I have also created a short video showing the process. Continued

There are two ways to extend a SmartShape over a system break.

1: Double-click into the score like you normally would to enter the SmartShape into the score, but instead of dragging to the right, drag straight down to the next system. As you drag down to the next system the smartshape will automatically draw across the measures of the first system. Once you reach the system that you would like to end on, you can drag to the right to continue it through the measures of the current system.

or,

2: Change to Scroll View and then draw the SmartShape normally by double-clicking and dragging to the right over the measures that you wish to apply the SmartShape too. Then switch back to Page View - the SmartShape will automatically draw correctly.

N.B. - the only way to adjust the SmartShape once you have entered it into the document is to switch into scroll view and manually drag the SmartShape handles. You cannot drag straight down to extend or remove.

Here is a video!

The Save/Load Library feature is one of the most overlooked and powerful features in Finale.

Any custom chord suffixes or fretboards, custom text or shape expressions, percussion maps, Text Repeats or Staff Styles can be saved from the current document that you are working on and loaded into a new document, saving you hours of work from having to recreate these libraries from scratch.

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When you need to insert a special symbol into your lyrics or text, you can do so by using the specific tools Insert >> Symbol option.

With the Text Tool double-click into the score to create a text box and then go up to your Text Menu and choose Insert >> Symbol. This will open the Symbol Selection Window which will display the first 255 symbols available within the font.

Just about the same steps apply when using your Lyric Tool, except that you must enter the symbols into the Edit Lyric Window. Go up to your Lyric Menu and choose Edit Lyrics. This will open the Edit Lyrics Window displaying your current lyric. Go up to your Text Menu at the top left of the Edit Lyrics Window and choose Insert Symbol.

Finale is limited to the first 255 symbols of a font. This is definitely a limitation as some fonts have more than 255 characters, especially non-English fonts. There is no way around this limitation except to find a font that contains the specific symbol that you are looking for within the first 255 characters.

See you in the score!