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Running Finale from the command line

Finale supports multiple filespecs and wildcards in the command line. For example, specifying “*.musx” in the command line will open all the music files in the current folder. Finale also supports the following command line switches. These switches can appear in any order, anywhere in the command line. They are not case sensitive, and can be combined. Either “-” or “/” acts as a switch trigger. Some switches can be accessed more easily from the Preferences dialog box, such as whether to open a document on startup.

  • -q Instead of launching Finale and displaying an “Untitled” document, the Open dialog box appears and prompts for the file you want to open. The Open dialog box is displayed once for each “q” switch in the command line.
  • -n Launches Finale without loading the MIDI drivers. This can be useful if you are running other MIDI software, or if there is some other MIDI-related problem on your system.
  • -x Launches Finale without opening any documents, not even a default “Untitled” document.
  • -z Launches Finale without any Plug-ins. The Plug-in menu will not appear.
  • -i Lets you specify an alternate Finale.INI file. Enter the file name of the INI file you want Finale to draw its settings from. This can be very useful if you share your computer with someone else, or if you have different projects that require different global settings.
  • -p Prints the first file on the command line.
Example Description
Finale -qn Starts Finale without MIDI and prompts for a file name.
Finale pr1\*.musx -i Finale.pr1 Opens all the files in the PR1 folder, and uses the settings in Finale.PR1 instead of Finale.INI.

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Finale 2014 for Windows

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