I wrote:
OK, but the problem is not with type into score, it is with the edit dialog box, which does not properly adjust syllable assignments when one uses the edit dialog box in a manner which changes the total syllable count.
to which Mark replied
Correct, except for your word "properly". The Edit Lyrics box SHOULDN'T adjust syllable assignments when one changes the syllable count, because as often as not when one changes the syllable count in the Edit Lyrics box it is intentional.
If I have correctly deduced how Finale deals with lyrics, when a syllable is assigned to a note, the note to which it is assigned is given an attribute which is a number of syllables by which the syllable is offset from the first one. Now, imagine that the fifteenth lyric syllable has been assigned to beat one of particular measure of music, and the sixteenth syllable has been assigned to beat three of the same measure. Now, imagine that one decides to add a syllable on beat two, between the fifteenth and sixteenth measures, either to an already existing note, or by creating a new note, as one would if one changed an existing half note on beat one to a quarter note, and added a "new" quarter note on beat 2. At present, the syllables pointed to by the offset on the two original notes, on beats one and three, still point to the fifteenth and sixteenth syllables. Now, if one adds a syllable to the new note on beat two using type into score, the new note is given an appropriate attribute pointing to the new syllable, and it appears to me that Finale audits the syllable assignments for the rest of the notes in the system, and adjusts the values there accordingly. In the opposite manner, if one decides to change two quarter notes to a halt note, the offsets on the succeeding notes are adjusted so that the offset now points to the proper position of the syllable.
If, on the other hand, one changes the half note to two quarters, and then uses the edit lyrics box to insert the proper syllable for the new note in the proper place, it appears that Finale makes no adjustment of the syllable counts of any of the syllables, so that the note which formerly had an offset to the fifteenth syllable still has an offset to the fifteenth syllable, and the note which formerly had an offset to the sixteenth syllable, still has an offset to the sixteenth syllable. However, the sixteenth and succeeding syllables are no longer the syllables originally assigned. Complicating this matter is the fact that when one attempts to shift lyrics, there is ordinarily a guard mechanism which prevents a syllable from one staff form being shifted onto a different staff, but when one changes the syllable counts using the edit edit lyrics dialog, this guard mechanism is bypassed, so that if a syllable is being added, the last syllable is shifted into the first position on the next staff, or if a syllable is being deleted, the first syllable of the next staff is associated with the last note of the current one. This cannot be undone using shift lyrics, because the shift lyrics system invokes the guard.mechanism. I suspect that the reason Finale doesn't adjust the assignment of notes to syllables when changes are made using the edit lyrics dialog box, is because the program does not keep track of where the edit is being made relative to the beginning of the lyrics block, so the information is not available to permit this.
But all of this is a preface to saying that I used the word "properly", in my original post in the sense of "accurately", rather than making a judgement on whether or not it was desirable for changes in the edit lyrics dialog box to be reflected in syllable assignments.
ns
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