If you want to create a staccato playback effect but you don’t need an actual staccato mark on each of the affected notes, you can use the MIDI tool to achieve the same effect by altering the Start and Stop Times of the notes.

To create staccato playback with the MIDI tool

1. Click the MIDI tool  , and select the region to be affected. Click to select one measure, SHIFT+click to select additional measures, drag-enclose to select several on-screen measures, click to the left of the staff to select the entire staff, or choose Edit > Select All.
2. If you want to edit only particular notes on a single staff, double-click the highlighted area to enter the MIDI tool split-window. Select the specific notes whose durations you want to edit. Once in the MIDI tool split-window, you can select entire regions of notes by dragging through the “graph” area of the window. You can also choose specific notes to edit by selecting their handles (in the notation display at the bottom of the window). Select one handle by clicking, additional handles by SHIFT+clicking, a group of handles by drag-enclosing, and additional groups by shift–drag-enclosing.
3. Choose MIDI tool > Edit Note Durations. If you’re in the MIDI tool window, you can click the Note Duration icon instead.
4. Choose MIDI tool > Percent Alter. The Percent Alteration dialog box appears, letting you specify how much shorter you want each note to be.
5. Enter 50 (or any other percentage). You’re telling Finale how much to shorten each note relative to its notated full value (50% of full value, for example).
6. Click OK. Close the MIDI split-window if it’s open by clicking the MIDI tool. To restore the affected notes to their full values, select the affected measures and press BACKSPACE or use the Selection tool to erase Performance Data.

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