Shape Designer menu

How to get there

Choose the Expression tool , and double-click a note or measure.

Or,

1. Choose the Text tool and select the handle of a text block.
2. Choose Text > Custom Frame.
3. Click Shape; Create; Select; Create. You arrive in the Shape Designer, and this menu appears at the top of the screen.

What it does

The Shape Designer menu contains a number of commands that help you create your own custom musical shapes. For example, it lets you specify how thick a line is, what kind of shading should fill a rectangle, whether a line should be dashed or solid, and so on. It also contains commands for manipulating individual objects in your drawing—for grouping them together, rearranging their front-to-back order, and so on.

• Show. Using this submenu, you can make Finale display or hide any of these helpful, nonprinting alignment aids. See Show submenu.
• Send to Back • Bring to Front. If you’ve created objects that overlap each other, you can rearrange their front-to-back order by using these commands. Begin by clicking the Selection tool, then clicking the object you want to manipulate. Choose Send to Back to place the selected object “behind” all other objects, so that it’s covered up by them. Choose Bring to Front to place the selected object “in front” of all other objects, so that they’re covered up by it.
• Group • Ungroup. Using the (Shape Designer's) Selection Tool, you can SHIFT-click to select any number of objects, and then choose the Group command to bind them together into a single, grouped object. A grouped object behaves just like any normal object: you can change its fill or line thickness, drag its corner handles to resize it, drag it by the middle to move it around on the screen, and so on. You can even group grouped objects into still other groups, creating nested groups.

  Finale always keeps track of what objects were combined into grouped objects, and can ungroup them in sequence. Select a group by clicking, then choose Ungroup; you’ll see by the appearance of many more corner handles that the grouped object has now been split back into its component single pieces. (Or, if you ungroup a grouped object, it will split into its component grouped objects.)

• Select Font. If you're using the Text tool to create or edit a text object, choose this command to display the Font dialog box, where you can change the font, size and style of the selected text (or, if your cursor is inside a text object, the text that follows the cursor). If no text object is selected, use this command to specify the font for the next text object you create.
• Line Style. If you've selected an object composed of lines (a line, rectangle, polygon, and so on), use this submenu to determine whether its outline (or the line itself) is dashed or solid. See Line Style submenu.
• Line Thickness. If you've selected an object composed of lines, use the commands in this submenu to determine the thickness of its outline (or the line itself). See Line Thickness submenu.
• Arrowheads. Choose this menu item to enter the Arrowheads dialog box and define what kind of arrowhead will appear on the line or curve you have selected.
• Fill. If you've selected an object that's an enclosed shape (a rectangle, ellipse, or polygon), use this submenu to determine the shading of the hollow (enclosed) inside area. See Fill submenu.
• Bracket Style. Using the Shape Designer's Bracket Tool, you can add a bracket to a custom shape you're drawing with a single click. Choose this command to specify what bracket style you want in the Bracket Style dialog box.
• Rulers and Grid. Choose this command to display the Rulers and Grid dialog box, where you can specify the measurement units used by the grid, rulers, and the H: and V: text boxes. You can also specify how far apart the tick marks on the rulers and grid should be.