Document Options-Music Spacing

 

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How to get there

From the Document Menu, choose Document Options, then select Music Spacing.

What it does

Because the matter of music spacing is one of personal taste, this dialog box lets you determine how Finale handles music spacing; for example, you can specify whether or not extra space should be allotted to accommodate lyrics or chord symbols, or specify the minimum distance between tied notes. To select the default measurement units, click on the Edit Menu, then Measurement Units, then select the desired units.

This feature can be useful for setting whole-rest and whole-note measures to some width that’s wider than Finale’s spacing feature would ordinarily allot.

Sometimes, however, Finale will encounter a note in your score for which it doesn’t have a predetermined width value—a quintuplet sixteenth note, for example. If you leave Use Default Width unselected, Finale will automatically consult its Spacing Library to find out the widths assigned to the nearest note values—a sixteenth note and a 32nd note, in the quintuplet example—and interpolates a new value automatically. This intelligent method will always give you the most professional results.

If you select Use Default Width, Finale will assign all unknown note values to a single default catch-all width value. See Duration Allotments dialog box for instructions on setting this default value, whose Duration is called zero.

The Scaling Factor (a number from 1.0 to 2.0) determines the spacing relationship between the Reference Duration and other durations in the document. For example, if a quarter note has a Reference Width of 72 EVPUs and the Scaling Factor is set to 2.0, the half note will receive 144 EVPUs (or twice as much) space. Conversely, a Scaling Factor of 1.0 will give the same amount of space to every note. The Scaling Factor for Fibonacci Spacing, a commonly used relationship in many fields, not just music spacing, is 1.618.

Tip: Music Spacing can be applied when notes are entered with Automatic Music Spacing (Program Options-Edit) or select a region of music with the Selection Tool and choose Apply Music Spacing from the Utilities Menu.

 

See Also:

Music spacing

Document Menu/Document Options

Document Menu

 

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