Fermata Friday: 8 Great Finale Tips

For today's Fermata Friday post, here is a post from Finale's blog on tips to learn and use the program more efficiently.

8 great tips for Finale:

1. QuickStart Videos: Find them in Finale’s Help menu or Launch Window. Don’t know how to get started? Don’t read manuals? These videos were created for you!

2. The Selection tool lets you do nearly anything. To select it with a two-button mouse, right-click. Have a one-button mouse? Then ctrl-click. With the Selection tool chosen, you can click on just about any item in Finale and subsequently manipulate it.

3. Selection tool keystrokes: Once you’ve selected something with the Selection tool, you can change it:

• Easy interval transposition? Experiment with typing 6, 7, 8, or 9
• Move measures? Use up/down arrows to move measures to adjacent staff systems
• Check range? Go to Plug-ins> Scoring and Arranging>Check Range

4. When using Simple Note Entry, these keyboard shortcuts can really speed things up:

• Entering an eighth note? Type a 4 on your numpad. Want a larger duration? Use a larger number, and so on.
• Type 0 to enter a rest for a selected duration
• Type r to change a note to a rest
• Type . (period) to add an augmentation dot to a note or rest

5. More Simple Entry tips!

• To select an existing note, ctrl-click it (Windows) or option-click it on a Mac
• Remember the Re-pitch tool on the Simple Entry Palette: it’s the whole note with arrows
• Have a laptop? Go to: Simple menu>Simple Entry Option>Edit Keyboard Shortcuts>Keyboard Shortcut Set

6. Other Simple Entry shortcuts: the x and * keystrokes (the ` keystroke on laptops) allow you to select the Expression and Articulation tools from within Simple Entry. From there you can use the same keystrokes you’d use within the Expression and Articulation tools, like:

• Expressions – to enter a forte: 4
• Articulations – to enter a staccato: s

7. Drag-Select: Within the Expression and Articulation tools, you can hold down a keyboard shortcut (like the 4=forte expression above) and drag-select several notes to add multiple staccatos.

8. SmartShape tool shortcuts:

• Select the slur tool: s
• Select the crescendo tool: <

Here is a link to the full article

Check out the Learning Center's resource page for Finale and Sibelius for more links, and for training sessions.