If you have ever wrestled with aligning your dynamics and hairpins under a staff, this Finale tip is for you.

TG Tools is a collection of Finale productivity plug-ins created by Tobias Giesen. A subest of this collection is provided for free with Finale, and includes one of my favorites: Align/Move Dynamics. This plug-in can horizontally align hairpin markings and dynamics, and move them together – up and down – as desired.

Situations like the following are no sweat with Align/Move. Just use the Selection tool to choose which area to align and run the plug-in. In most cases involving normal expressions, you’ll see perfectly aligned dynamics and hairpins.

Here are some Align/Move details. I hope you try it out on your next score.

Jon Senge engraves music for several notable publishers and loves talking notation. Tweet him at @jonsenge.