What's New in SongWriter 2012

• ScoreManager. ScoreManager™ takes care of the details – controlling how your staves look and sound – so you don’t have to. Easily change a flute staff to a clarinet staff. The ScoreManager knows how a clarinet staff transposes, looks, and sounds, so it makes all the necessary arrangements. The ScoreManager also handles playback and sound setup. See ScoreManager.
• Auto-numbered Instruments. Instruments in instrumental sections (Flute 1, Flute 2, etc.) are now numbered automatically when creating new files.
• Improved Lyric Entry. Lyrics are more easily entered and instantly appear exactly as they’ll print out. Lyrics also space themselves and the notes they’re attached to automatically so that you can have engraver-level quality without manual editing. See Lyrics.
• Automatic Word Extensions. Word extensions automatically draw to the next rest and also wrap to the next system. If the music expands or contracts, the extensions stretch or shrink to fit.
• Ignore Lyric Punctuation. Punctuation, at the beginning or end of a lyric, can now be ignored for better alignment and centering of different verses. See Lyrics menu.
• Automatic Lyric Numbering. Finale can now automatically add verse numbers to your lyrics. Add a new verse? It’s numbered too! See To number lyrics.
• Hard Spaces and Hyphens. "Hard" spaces and hyphens are used to add spaces and hyphens within lyric syllables without separating them into multiple syllables. Add them easily using new menu options. See Lyrics menu.
• Umlauts and other Characters. If you don't recall the associated keystroke for a needed umlaut, grave accent or other diacritical character, you can now simply select those items by sight. See Lyrics menu.
• Moving Staves. It’s now incredibly easy to move staves, in individual systems, or throughout the score. Want to increase the distance between staves? Click and drag. Your music updates automatically as you drag and you receive on-screen feedback about the distance between the staves and what staves will be impacted. See To move staves.
• Improved Pickup Measures. SongWriter now automatically fills pickup measures with the appropriate rest duration. See Pickup Measures.
• Updated Display Colors. SongWriter's screen display has been improved with attractive score colors for layers, dynamics, and other colored score elements.
• Folder Reorganization. To accommodate multiple users on the same machine and to prevent permissions issues, SongWriter 2012 now installs application-specific files to different locations on your hard drive. Refer to SongWriter Installation Details to identify the new locations for SongWriter's various components.
• Auto-detect MIDI Devices. SongWriter now identifies external MIDI devices as soon as you plug them in. No setup required! See MIDI Setup dialog box.
• Unicode Support. SongWriter now recognizes and displays Unicode font characters. See Unicode.
• New Finale Numerics Font. Easily add harmonic analysis and figured bass with stackable zero-width characters. See Finale Numerics font, Harmonic Analysis, and Figured Bass.
• New Finale Copyist Font. Like Broadway Copyist, but lighter-weight and with lower-case characters, this font was inspired by the golden era of handwritten Broadway scores. See Finale Copyist Font.
• Repertoire and Manuscript Paper Ten titles of Classroom Repertoire are provided, including Bach Inventions, traditional and holiday titles, and more. See Repertoire and Manuscript Paper. Two Music Manuscript documents are included as well. Print either the grand staff or generic example to have music manuscript handy for note taking or inspiration even when you’re away from the computer.

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