Automatic Dynamic Placement

As we all know, Finale's default settings can be a bit bizarre. They're not terrible, but they're also not ideal. Professional engravers take the time to go under the hood and tweak as many elements as needed to get the look that they want.

Recently, a discussion came up about dynamic placement. I have always used Finale's default positioning and then manually nudged them left or right as needed, but this morning I decided to go under the hood and try to fix them preemptively. Of course there will be situations in which you will still have to make some manual adjustments, but with these changes to the default settings, you'll save yourself tons of time in the future.

1. Open your default document. If you always work from the same template, then open that template. Once it's open, make sure it says "template" or whatever you've named the file, and not "untitled." If it says "Untitled," then you are not changing your default document; you are changing a new file that was created based on your default document.

2. Select the Expression Tool...

...and open the Expression Selection palette. Select "Dynamics" from the list on the left, then select "Edit Categories" by clicking the button in the bottom left corner.

3. Select "Dynamics" from the menu on the left, then go to Positioning and make sure Justification is set to Center, then change Horizontal Alignment to "Center of Primary Notehead." Change "Additional Horizontal Offset" to -10 EVPUs. Select OK.

4. Go back into your score and select a note to add a dynamic. It should be lined up perfectly centered below the primary notehead. The only exception is in p sub, which you will need to go in and edit individually. I have that one set to Additional Horizontal Offset of 35 EVPUs (notice that just the p should be centered, not the entire p sub. marking).

In this demonstration, I am using the November2 music font. Whichever font you are using may have a slightly different EVPU adjustment, but the procedure is the same.

That's it. Your scores and parts now automatically look better. BAM!!!