Smart Slur Options dialog box

How to get there

  1. Choose the Smart Shape tool icon. The Smart Shape menu appears.
  2. Choose Smart Shape > Smart Slur Options.

What it does

Noteman says: Changes in this dialog box not only affect slurs but can also affect guitar bends and bend hat Smart Shapes. Most changes you make to the Smart Slur Options settings affect existing Smart Slurs in the score, except slurs that have been manually edited. Slur thickness and tip width changes affect all slurs.

The Smart Slur Options dialog box allows you to specify how your slurs appear in Finale. The dialog box gives you access to Engraver slurs, slurs that avoid collisions with other items such as articulations or note stems. You can decide how much the Engraver slurs move or distort to avoid a collision.

You can provide placement options for slurs and bends that break over systems and control the thickness of all Smart Shape slurs in your piece. Slur Thickness is the desired thickness of the solid slur lines for every slur in your score. You can specify where slurs and bends will end horizontally on a staff line, and at what point horizontally they will start on the next staff line within a system break. You can also specify distances of slurs and bends from the staff lines. Finale automatically breaks all slurs and bends according to the current Slur System Breaks settings.

    Noteman says: Engraver slurs make extensive use of font annotation, to determine the size of other musical items in collision avoidance. If you are using a music font not supplied by MakeMusic, we strongly recommend you annotate the font for improved performance in Engraver slurs.

  • Use Engraver Slurs. Use this checkbox to have slurs avoid collisions with other items, such as stems, beams, and noteheads. If this box is checked, Finale uses the settings below to determine how Engraver slurs should reshape to avoid collisions. Any manual edit to an Engraver slur will make it immune to these settings. It will still be marked as an Engraver slur in the contextual menu but will be frozen. When frozen, Engraver slurs will no longer reshape to changes in the notes. Select Remove Manual Slur Adjustments in the contextual menu to revert the slur to behaving like an Engraver slur or unfreeze the slur.
  • Maximum Slur Angle in Degrees. Enter a value between 0 and 90 to restrict the angle of a slur. Note: settings made in the Slur Contour dialog box will be ignored if this value is small.
  • Slur Symmetry Percentage. Enter a percent value (between 0 and 100) to define how symmetrical a slur appears. On a flat baseline with 100% symmetry, the slur will tend to be symmetrical. However, if the slur’s baseline is not horizontally flat with 100% symmetry, the slur will reflect the skewed baseline symmetrically.
  • Space Around Objects. Enter a value for how much space Engraver slurs should leave to avoid collisions with other objects.
  • Avoid Accidentals. Select this checkbox to have Engraver slurs take accidentals into account for collision avoidance.
  • Space Around Accidentals. Use this field to determine how much space Engraver slurs should leave to avoid collisions with accidentals.
  • Initial Adjustment: Stretch. Choose this option to stretch the curve of Engraver slurs vertically and leave the endpoints anchored.
  • Initial Adjustment: Maximum Stretch: As Percentage of Slur Length • Fixed Amount. Enter a percentage or fixed amount to control the maximum amount of vertical stretch allowed for Engraver slurs.
  • Initial Adjustment: Lift: Maximum Lift. Enter a value to restrict how much an Engraver slur moves to avoid collisions with other objects.
  • Slur Avoidance: Articulations Avoid Slurs By. Articulations automatically move to avoid collisions when slurs are added or adjusted. Use this text box to change the amount of space between articulations and slurs.
  • Slur System Breaks: Avoid Staff Lines by at Least • System Start Adjustment • System End Adjustment. The Avoid Staff Lines by at Least option is the distance between slurs and bends, and the top or bottom staff line. The System Start Adjustment and System End Adjustment text boxes contain the horizontal start and endpoints of slurs and bends continuing over system breaks. The System Start Adjustment and System End Adjustment default to zero. Enter a positive number for the System Start Adjustment to move the start point to the right (into the staff system) for slurs and bends that continue over a system break. Enter a negative number for the System End Adjustment to specify the horizontal distance from the end of a staff system to the end of a slur or bend on that system. The System Start and End Adjustments control only the location of the slur or bend ends located at the end of one staff and the beginning of the next, not the placement of the very beginning and end of the whole slur or bend.
  • Thickness Left • Thickness Right: Horizontal • Vertical. The Thickness text boxes contain values for how thick you want Finale to draw slurs. Each slur is composed of two curves, an inner curve and an outer curve. These settings determine the relationship between the curves - how fat the slur is, how fast it tapers, and whether one side is thicker than the other (for a "hand-drawn" look). The Horizontal settings can make the slur taper more or less quickly: a positive value on the left (mirrored by the opposite value on the right) will make it appear to taper more quickly, a negative value less quickly. The Vertical setting determines the general thickness of the slur. Equal values give a balanced slur; unequal values make it thicker on one end than the other.
  • Slur Tip: Tip Width • Tips Avoid Staff Lines By. Enter the desired width for the slur tip. Check the Tips Avoid Staff Lines By box to shift the ends of slurs to avoid staff lines.

    Tip: Slur Tip Width for Shape Designer slurs is set in the Document Options - Lines and Curves dialog box.

  • Units: EVPUs • Inches • Centimeters • Points • Picas • Spaces. Select the measurement unit for the values in this dialog box. See Equivalents to learn how these values relate to each other.
  • Reset. Click Reset to restore the settings to Finale's defaults.
  • 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:

Slurs

Smart Shape Placement dialog box