Equivalents
Noteman says: Picas are expressed using the format xpy, where x is the number of picas and y is the "remainder" in points. For example, because there are 12 points per pica, a value of one-and-a-half picas would appear as 1p6 (equivalent to ¼ inch).
Measurement units
This table gives equivalents for EVPUsEVPUs, or ENIGMA Virtual Page Units, are Finale's flexible units of measurement used to calculate the size and spacing of your music, defined as 288 EVPUs per inch or 24 EVPUs per space. You can display the measurements in more common units such as inches, centimeters, points or spaces., points, millimeters, spaces, picas, centimeters, and inches. A space is the music engraver’s unit of measurement, equivalent to the distance between two staff lines. Finale's default staff line spacing is 1/12 inch (24 EVPUs), so the 'space' measurement unit is always equal to 24 EVPUs regardless of actual staff line spacing.
EVPUs | Points | Millimeters | Spaces | Picas | Centimeters | Inches |
1 | .25 | .08819 | .04167 | .02083 | .00882 | .00347 |
4 | 1 | .35278 | .16667 | .08333 | .03528 | .01389 |
11 | 2.75 | 1 (.97014) | .45833 | .22917 | .09701 | .03819 |
24 | 6 | 2.11667 | 1 | .5 | .21167 | .08333 |
48 | 12 | 4.23333 | 2 | 1 | .42333 | .16667 |
113 | 28.25 | 9.96597 | 4.70833 | 2.35417 | 1 (.99660) | .39236 |
288 | 72 | 25.4 | 12 | 6 | 2.54 | 1 |
Noteman says: When you’re overriding the global setting by including units, you have a millimeters option that is not available in the Measurement Units submenu.
Even with one of these measurement units selected, you can override your global choice on a case-by-case basis. Just include the units, or their abbreviation, when you type any measurement number into Finale. For example, suppose you’ve selected Inches as your global unit of measurement. When you’re telling Finale how thick you’d like your slurs to be, inches may be slightly unwieldy for such a fine adjustment. Therefore, you might type “2 points.” Finale automatically converts 2 points into 0.02778 inches.
You don’t have to type out the word “points,” of course. You can enter any of the following abbreviations into any measurement-oriented dialog box:
Units | Abbreviations |
EVPUs | EVPUs, evpus, e |
inches | inches, inch, in, i, ” |
centimeters | centimeters, cm, c |
millimeters | millimeters, mm, m |
picas | picas, p |
points | points, pts, pt |
spaces | spaces, sp, s |
Durational units
Finale also uses its own units of rhythmic, or durational, measurement: EDUsEDUs, or ENIGMA Duration Units, are Finale's high-resolution measurement for the duration of notes and rests, defined as 1024 EDUs per quarter note.. The following table provides EDU equivalents for use on those occasions when you need to perform conversions of rhythmic value into EDUs in Finale.
Rhythmic value | EDUs |
double whole | 8192 |
dotted whole | 6144 |
whole | 4096 |
dotted half | 3072 |
half | 2048 |
dotted quarter | 1536 |
half note triplet | 1365 |
quarter | 1024 |
dotted eighth | 768 |
triplet quarter | 683 |
eighth | 512 |
dotted sixteenth | 384 |
triplet eighth | 341 |
sixteenth | 256 |
dotted 32nd | 192 |
triplet sixteenth | 171 |
32nd | 128 |
dotted 64th | 96 |
64th | 64 |
dotted 128th | 48 |
128th | 32 |
See also: