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Fonts

Noteman says: Many fonts included with Finale come with a Type 1 PostScript font and a TrueType font. While TrueType fonts suffice in almost every situation, some publishers require the use of the PostScript format. A custom installation of Finale gives you the option of installing either the PostScript or TrueType fonts on your system. You can identify font types by viewing the properties of an individual font in Font Book.

Most items you see in Finale are created with font characters; not only text but also most musical symbols (such as noteheads, clefs, and expressions) are font characters as well. This means you can choose from different noteheads, different treble clefs, or whatever you'd like, to make your music look exactly the way you want it to. Furthermore, within lyrics, text blocks, chord symbols, and the Shape Designer, you are able to mix fonts freely: you could, for example, combine text characters with musical symbols, or have selected lyrics italicized.

For a more in-depth discussion of the fonts included with Finale, see Character sets. For information on third-party music fonts, see Alternative music fonts below.

Alternative music fonts

Documents created in Finale use default fonts assigned to various score elements, such as notes and rests, clefs, expressions, chords and fretboards, and text. You may wish to use different fonts than those preselected for you; for example, if you need to use the house style of a particular music publisher, you can substitute fonts in your Finale document. This can be done globally for all music symbols, globally for a particular element, globally for all instances of a particular font, or on a staff-by-staff basis for noteheads. The following chart lists some common third-party fonts that are available for use in Finale.

Font name Description Provider
November 2.0 by Robert Piéchaud November is a rich set made up of more than 330 symbols, from basic shapes such as note heads, clefs and rests, up to rarer characters like microtonal accidentals, plain-song clefs or baroque ornaments. Based on the fractal concept, in which details are as important as the whole, even for very small symbols such as music characters, November has been crafted with total attention to details and a new coherence. November is inspired by the spirit of traditional music engraving art… but with a revolutionary graphic idea! Klemm Music Technology
Toccata and Fughetta by Blake Hodgetts Hundreds of additional musical symbols; available for Mac and Windows. The full package includes TrueType and PostScript fonts, custom Finale libraries, character charts, stem connection settings and full documentation. The Hodgetts Page
Vienna, Stockholm, and others by MuseGraph MuseGraph makes various sets of music fonts for use in notation programs such Finale or Sibelius. All typefaces are tested on and adjusted for Finale on both Windows and Mac OS X. All fonts include several types of sets (TrueType, OpenType, Suit, PostScript – for both platforms) and .fan files for Finale. MuseGraph
Sonata by Cleo Huggins for Adobe Systems The first music font, and a favorite among computer copyists. This font has fewer symbols than most other fonts but remains popular because of its “classic” look. Available for Mac and Windows. FontSpring (perpetual license)
Metronome and MetTimes by DVM Publications A music font that works like a text font. A collection of number sets, text characters and built-in music characters lets you mix text with markings and music symbols without changing fonts. MetTimes includes the largest collection of dynamics in any music font. Available for Mac and Windows. DVMarticulations is included free of charge. DVM Publications
Susato by Werner Eickhoff-Maschitzki The Susato PostScript Type 1 and TrueType character sets take the aesthetics of traditional note engraving into account and thus greatly enhance the printouts made with Finale. The standard character set is complemented by an accordion register font, a guitar tablature font, and a notehead font. Available for Mac and Windows. Notengrafik (German)
Figured Bass by Ansgar Krause This font allows you to write figured bass symbols of baroque music. It can be used with nearly any kind of software. Its special power is to give you direct entry of numbers, accidentals and brackets below each other at up to four different distances from the baseline without having to go into different entry layers (verses etc.). Of course, it also contains struck-through numbers in several designs. Moreover, the font can also be used to enter stacked fingerings - e.g. for piano chords. Final Font Solutions

See also:

Font annotation

Configuring MacSymbolFonts.txt

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