Working with templates

It’s a good idea never to build any score configuration more than once—save any such template, with no music in it, so that you can open it the next time you need a similar system setup.

As an alternative to using templates, you can save a custom ensemble in the Setup Wizard. This allows you to choose a different Document Style whenever you start a new file using your custom ensemble.

When you open a template document, Finale opens the last two pages of the Setup Wizard where you can customize the template’s title, composer, time signature, key signature, and other settings. Upon finishing the Wizard, Finale opens a new untitled document based on your settings (so you don’t accidentally change the original). You’ll find more than 30 different kinds of blank scores (piano-vocal scores, choral setups, chamber orchestra scores, and so on.)

To preserve a blank original template while opening a duplicate to work on:

1. From the File menu, choose New, then Document from Template. The Open dialog box appears, allowing you to choose a template folder, then document.
2. Double-click the template you want to open and finish the Setup Wizard. When the document comes to the screen, it’s called Untitled. This technique achieves the same result as the Save As technique: It preserves the original template for future use, and brings an untitled copy to the screen.

Saving new templates

Open any document and make the desired settings. For example, if you plan to compose a multimovement horn piece, you might add some horn staves and create a horn quintet template. When you’ve setup your score, from the File menu, choose Save. Name the file and save it to the Finale 2012/Music Files/Templates folder (see Finale Installation Details for the exact location). Then, when you want to use the file, from the File menu, choose New > Document from Template, and double-click to open the file. To open a file as a template, you must choose New > Document From Template from the File menu. In fact, in Macintosh, you can open any file as a template as long as you first choose Document From Template. Using File > Open, will not create a duplicate file, and will save over the original file when you choose Save from the File menu.

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