Printing

Producing your sheet music

Finale has many options available for printing.

By the end of this lesson you will know how to:

  1. Format your score and parts to print on different sized paper
  2. Create PDFs of your score

Printings scores and parts

When it's time to print, the first step is remembering to turn off Display in Concert Pitch (if you intend to display instruments in their transposed keys). Because Display in Concert Pitch is still checked in our document, choose Document > Display in Concert Pitch to uncheck it.

At this point, your score and parts are ready to print. Finale’s Page View is also a print preview – the way your music displays on the screen now is how it will print.

Print - What it does:

This window allows you to select items to print, specify the number of copies and page ranges, and choose your printer.

To print

  1. Choose File > Print.
  2. Check the box marked Score and the box marked Clarinet in Bb.
  3. Click on the number under Copies to change to 2 copies of the Score.
  4. Click OK.

Changing page size and orientation

In order to change the orientation from portrait to landscape (or vice versa), you will need to both adjust Finale's settings, and your printer's settings.

To change the orientation

  1. Select the Page Layout tool icon.
  2. Choose Page Layout > Page Size.
  3. Select Landscape and click OK.
  4. Choose File > Printer Page Setup.
  5. Select Landscape.
  6. Click OK, then print.

Creating PDFs

The Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) provides a universal file format that preserves the fonts, formatting and graphics of a source document, regardless of what platform or application was used to create it. PDF files can be shared, viewed and printed by anyone with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

To save your Finale document as a PDF

Noteman says: If you would like the option to save PDFs of the score and parts in a single print session, you need to purchase the Adobe Acrobat Distiller for Windows and install it as a print driver, then choose File > Print. See Adobe PDF Documents for details.

  1. Navigate to the part or score you want to save as a PDF.
  2. Choose File > Export > PDF.
  3. Name the file, choose a destination, and click Save.
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