Finale’s music spacing libraries were constructed
by listing rhythmic values—from 64th note to double whole note—and assigning
each a horizontal space measurement. Depending on your own tastes, you
may sometimes want to alter the music spacing libraries.
- Load an existing Music Spacing Library as described
above.
- From the Document menu, choose Document Options
and select Music Spacing.
The Music Spacing options appear.
- Click Spacing Widths > Use spacing widths
table > Widths. The Widths dialog box appears, displaying
a durational value (measured in EDUs, 1024 per quarter note) in the top
box and its allotted horizontal width in the bottom box. (The units of
the lower box are whatever you’ve selected using the Measurement Units
command in the Edit menu.) Click Duration to see the closest notated equivalent
of the EDU value. If you click the Prev and Next buttons, you can step
through the various rhythmic values to see what horizontal space each
has been assigned. (To help you with the math, remember that 512 EDUs
is an eighth note.) Or click Duration and click the durational value whose
allotment you want to change.
- Click Prev or Next until you locate the rhythmic
value whose width you want to alter. Enter its new value in the bottom
text box. In the quintuplet example, you’d actually want to create
a new rhythm/width pair, and insert it into the existing library.
- To create a new rhythm/width pair, enter the
rhythm value (in EDUs) in the top box, and its width allotment in the
bottom box; then click Insert. When you do this, it will appear
that you’ve typed over an existing duration/allotment pairing. But in
fact, when you click Insert, you merely add your new pair to the library.
- Similarly, you can remove the displayed duration/allotment
pairing by clicking Delete.
Note. the other options
in this box, by the way—by selecting the appropriate checkboxes, you can
specify which musical elements you want Finale to consider when calculating
new measure widths: Notes and Accidentals, Articulations, Chords, Lyrics,
Note-attached Expressions, Clefs, Unisons and Seconds. See Document Options-Music Spacing
for details.
- When you’re finished, click OK. Use the Music
Spacing command (Utilities menu) to apply the new allotments to your document.
