Lyrics

There are two ways to create lyrics within Finale. You can type the lyrics directly into the score, so that you know at all times where you are in the music—a feature called Type Into Score. Or you may prefer the faster Click Assignment method—where you type the lyrics in Finale’s text processor (called the Edit Lyrics window), and then paste them into the score all at once. The Click Assignment method also offers you the option of pasting your lyrics in from another program, such as a word processor; see Importing.

Finale defines a syllable as any letters separated by a space or a hyphen. When you put the lyrics into the score, Finale places the syllable in your score by the settings in the Lyrics Options dialog box, centers the hyphen between notes, and moves any syllable correspondingly if its notehead moves.

Lyrics are often written in distinct sections—verse and chorus, for example. For that reason, Finale provides three different lyric types—Verse, Chorus, and Section. These types are identical in every respect—you can write the verse of a song and define it as a Chorus, if you want to—except that you can set the default font and positioning for each type differently. You could specify, for example, that all Verses are to be set in boldface type, but that all Choruses are set in italic type. (You can have as many as 512 of each lyric type. You can also change the font and style within any lyric.)

To type lyrics directly into the score

To prepare lyrics in a separate window

To place lyrics into the score (click assignment)

To edit lyrics already in the score

To correct misaligned lyrics

To correct overlapping lyrics

To set the font for lyrics globally

To change fonts within a lyric

To prevent changing the type size for lyrics attached to cue notes

To set the baseline (vertical position) for lyrics numerically

To set the baseline (vertical position) for lyrics graphically

To move or delete a syllable