Special Tools Palette

 

Note Position Tool

moves a note horizontally

Note Shape Tool

changes a notehead shape

Stem Length Tool

lengthens or shortens a stem

Stem Direction Tool

freezes a stem up or down

Reverse Stem Tool

moves a stem to “wrong” side of note

Beam Angle Tool

changes a beam’s height and angle

Beam Extension Tool

extends a beam (even across barlines)

Tie Tool

changes a tie length and arc

Beam Width Tool

changes the thickness of a beam

 

Notehead Position Tool

moves a notehead horizontally

Accidental Tool

moves an accidental

Broken Beam Tool

flips a beam “stub” to the other side

Double/Split Stem Tool

 “splits” a chord’s stem

Custom Stem Tool

lets you create a stem of any shape

Secondary Beam Break Tool

breaks 16th note (and other) beams

Secondary Beam Angle Tool

changes angle of secondary beams

Dot Tool

moves a dot up, down, left, or right

Beam Stem Adjust Tool

lengthens or shortens stems with beams

 

How to get there

From the Window menu, choose Advanced Tools. Click the Special Tools tool  image\Special_Tools_Tool.gif on the Advanced Tools Palette. If the palette does not appear, choose Special Tools Palette from the Window menu.

What it does

Using the Special Tools Palette, you can edit any measure on the screen at any view size. You can move, resize, hide, and reshape the palette on the screen as you like. To change layers, choose the layer you wish to work in by clicking a Layer push button at the bottom of the document window. Click on the name of the tool by the Special Tools palette to jump to see more information.

 

When you select an element’s handle, Finale displays the relative position of the selected element in the message bar. If you select more than one handle, values are only displayed if they are the same for all the selected elements. When no handles are selected, Finale displays the message for the tool currently selected on the Special Tools Palette.

You can also flip note stems when you’re editing with the Speedy Entry tool: position the insertion bar on a note and press the L key. (Press CTRL+L to restore it to floating, “unfrozen” status.)

To create a double stem on a single-stemmed note (top left), click the Double/Split Stem Tool in the Special Tools window (right), and click the handle below the note. The result: a second stem on the other side of the notehead (bottom left).

The new, second stem points the opposite direction from the original stem, no matter which handle (top or bottom) you clicked.

The bottom handle has an additional feature. It can produce split stemming within a chord, giving the effect of a separate inner voice, like this.

There are two steps involved in creating this effect. First, click the bottom stem to let Finale know you want to create split stemming (above left). Then click the handle of each note you want to be a part of the upper stem only (above right).

For more options, right-click on the handle of a notehead and choose Edit to display the Notehead Settings dialog box. In this dialog box, you can enter a precise number for positioning and change the size or shape of the notehead.

You may need this tool when you create cross-staff notation using the Note Mover tool; see Cross-staff notes.

Note that you can control Finale’s tendency to flip the stem direction of reverse-stemmed notes; for a full explanation, read the description of the RevStem Adj parameter in the Document Options: Stems entry. (Set the Reverse Stem Adjustment parameter to zero if you never want Finale to change stem directions on reverse-stemmed notes.) See Document Options-Stems.

To restore a normal stem to a custom-stemmed note, click its handle and press BACKSPACE. To modify the shape itself, double-click the handle to re-enter the Shape Designer.

When you return to the document, you can drag the beam handles to the right or left, shortening or lengthening the beams you specified. Click a handle and press DELETE to restore a beam, or double-click a handle to re-enter the Beam Extension Selection dialog box (to specify a different set of beams to modify).

When you click the tool, handles appear at each end of every beam. The right handle of each beam changes the beam angle; as you move it up and down, the left handle controls the height and the pivot point. By changing the angle of one beam independently of the other (and by using the regular Beam Angle Tool to change the outer [eighth-note] beam’s angle), you can make them appear to converge or diverge.

If you prefer to enter exact values instead of dragging, double-click an ending tie handle and enter new values for the tie in the Tie Alterations dialog box. These values override the global tie placement values you defined in the Document menu.

 

Note that in cases where a tie straddles a system (line) break, you can also edit the tie’s “tail” on the next line—the miniature tie that represents the continuation of the tie from the previous system. Use the Tie Alterations dialog box settings (or Document Options-Ties for global settings for Tie System Breaks).

There are up to two handles on dotted notes. Drag the first (or only) handle to move the first dot away from or closer to a note. A second handle appears on notes with more than one dot. It appears after the last dot, and controls the space between dots. Drag the second handle to move the last dot away from, or closer to the previous dot. Finale automatically adjusts any dots between the first and the last dot so they are evenly spaced.

Tip: Click and drag-select several stems in a beam group to uniformly adjust them at one time.

 

See Also:

Main Tool Palette

Advanced Tools Palette

 

 

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