Change Articulation Assignments dialog box

How to get there

  1. Choose the Selection tool icon and select a region of measures.
  2. Choose Utilities > Change > Articulations.

What it does

Noteman says: If you find that your selected measurement unit is too large or small to work with, you can override your global choice by including the units or abbreviation when entering values. Or, you can set the default measurement units used in this dialog box by choosing Finale > Measurement Units and selecting the desired units.

Using the Change Articulation Assignments dialog box, you can swap one articulation marking for another, adjust the positions of all accent marks at once (for example), clean up the positioning of all articulations in a region, or update all of the articulations in a document to adhere to automatic stacking positioning defined in the Articulation Designer dialog box.

  • Apply To: All articulations • Selected articulation: ____ • Select. Select All articulations if you want Finale to adjust the position of every articulation in the selected region. If you only want to move all occurrences of a specific marking, choose Selected articulation and enter its number into the text box. Finale numbers its articulations from left to right, top to bottom, in the Articulation Selection dialog box. It may be more convenient to click Select; Finale displays a palette of all articulations in the current document. Double-click the one you want to reposition and return to this dialog box, where the correct number appears in the text box. How Finale moves the selected articulations depends on your setting from the Options section (see below); this selection specifies which markings will be moved.
  • Change to articulation: ____ • Select. Choose this checkbox if, instead of moving all articulations (or the selected articulation marking, depending on your choice of the top two options), you want to replace them with a different articulation marking. You could replace all > accent marks with ^ accent marks, for example. To do so, enter the replacement symbol’s number in the text box, or click Select, and double-click your selection in the Articulation Selection dialog box that appears. Of course, if you enter numbers into the H: and V: text boxes, you can move the articulations as you replace them.
  • Add to Default Position • Add to Current Position. If you decide to adjust the positions of articulations, use this pop-up menu to specify how. If you choose Add to Default Position, Finale moves each marking into the position dictated by its built-in "smart" settings (defined in the Articulation Designer dialog box)—that is, according to whether it’s auto-centering, supposed to lie outside the staff lines, and so on—plus any additional adjustment you specify in the H: and V: text boxes (see below). See Articulation Designer dialog box to find out more about an articulation’s auto-positioning settings. If you instead choose Add to Current Position from the pop-up menu, Finale ignores whatever auto-positioning you’ve established for your articulations (in the Articulation Designer dialog box). Instead, Finale simply slides each marking—from its current position—a distance you’ve specified in the H: and V: text boxes (see below).
  • H: • V:. Type numbers into these text boxes to specify how far Finale should move the defined markings. A positive or negative H: value moves them to the right or left. When an articulation is positioned Always notehead side, or Always stem side, a positive V: value moves the marking away from the staff; a negative V: value moves the marking in toward the staff. Because they can flip from one side to another, Finale does not track their actual positions but instead places them closer to or further away from the staff. When an articulation is positioned Manually, Above note, or Below note, a positive V: value moves the articulation up; a negative V: value moves the articulation down. It doesn’t matter whether the articulation is above or below a note.
  • Make stacking dynamic for stacked articulations. Check this box to update the selected articulations to adhere to the stacking order and positioning defined in the Articulation Selection and Articulation Designer dialog boxes. This is handy if you have opted not to update articulation positioning when opening a file created before Finale v26.
  • Cancel • OK. Click OK (or press RETURN) to confirm, or Cancel to discard, the changes you’ve made and return to the score.

See also:

Articulations

Utilities menu