Staff groups

Every staff in Finale can be assigned to one or more groups. Grouped staves have several important characteristics. First, you can control how barlines are drawn for the staves in a group (see Barlines). Second, you can add a bracket to grouped staves (see Brackets: Staves). Third, when you’re extracting parts, the Extract Parts command gives you the option of extracting groups as well as staves, making it possible for pairs of staves (piano, for example) to be extracted together, along with a solo part. 

Groups in linked parts are completely independent, although new linked parts can inherit the groups as they exist in the Manage Parts dialog box. See Groups in linked parts.

To group staves

1. Click the Staff Tool  . The Staff Menu appears.
2. Select all the staves you want included in the group, then choose Add Group and Bracket from the Staff Menu. The Group Attributes dialog box appears.
3. Select a staff from the Staff and Through drop-down lists to set the starting and ending staves for the group. All staves in between will also be part of the group.
4. Use the settings in the Group Attributes dialog box to set the group name, bracket, and barline for the new group. For more information, see Barlines,  Brackets: Staves, and Group Attributes dialog box.  
5. Click OK to confirm your changes.

Note: You can also group and ungroup staves in optimized systems in Page View if you need to change the definition of a group on a system-by-system basis. For information on optimizing, see Optimizing systems.

To remove a group

1. Click the Staff Tool  . The Staff Menu appears.
2. Click a group handle to select the group.
3. Choose Remove Group from the Staff Menu, or press delete. Finale removes the group definition for the staves in the selected group.

To change the attributes of a group

1. Click the Staff Tool  . The Staff Menu appears.
2. Click a group handle, then choose Edit Group Attributes from the Staff Menu. You may also double-click a group handle or choose Edit Group Attributes from the Staff Menu without selecting a group. The Group Attributes dialog box appears. To display the attributes of another group, click the arrow controls to select another Group ID number.
3. Use the Group Attributes dialog box to change and reposition the group name, add and reposition the bracket, and choose a barline style for the group barline. For details, see Group Attributes dialog box. 
4. Click OK to confirm your settings.

To add staves to a group

1. Click the Staff Tool  . The Staff Menu appears.
2. Click a group handle, then choose Edit Group Attributes from the Staff Menu. You may also double-click a group handle or choose Edit Group Attributes from the Staff Menu without selecting a group. The Group Attributes dialog box appears. To display the attributes of another group, click the arrow controls to select another Group ID number.
3. Add staves to a group by choosing different staff names from the Staff and Through drop-down lists. All staves in between will also be part of the group. For details, see Group Attributes dialog box.
4. Click OK to confirm your settings.

To remove staves from a group

To exclude a currently grouped staff from its group, you’ll need to change the staves that are included in the group.

1. Click the Staff Tool  . The Staff Menu appears.
2. Click a group handle, then choose Edit Group Attributes from the Staff Menu. You may also double-click a group handle or choose Edit Group Attributes from the Staff Menu without selecting a group. The Group Attributes dialog box appears. To display the attributes of another group, click the arrow controls to select another Group ID number.
3. Adjust which staves are included in a group by choosing different staff names from the Staff and Through drop-down lists. All staves in between will also be part of the group. For details, see Group Attributes dialog box.
4. Click OK to confirm your settings.

To configure a multiple-staff part to optimize like a single staff.

1. Click the Staff Tool  . The Staff Menu appears.
2. Click a group handle, then choose Edit Group Attributes from the Staff Menu.
3. Click the drop-down next to Group Optimization and choose Only Remove if All Staves Empty.
4. Click OK. Now, when you optimize your score, Finale will only remove the staves in the group you selected if all staves in the group are empty. For more information on optimization, see Optimizing systems.

Note: After a system has been optimized, edits to groups and brackets only apply to that system. To edit groups and brackets on optimized systems en mass, use the Update Groups and Brackets plug-in.