Paul Besco wrote:
I'm having trouble grasping the relationship between the huge Page Layout Options for Score dialog and the System and Page Margin dialogs.
One fact that helps here is to recognize that one mistake made early on by those creating Finale, was that they assumed that most people using the software would use templates as a starting point for new editions. Page Layout for Score (PLO /S) is most useful in this regard; in the process of preparing a template, you place in the PLO / S dialog box the values you want to be reflected when you use that template to create a new document, and if memory serves me correctly, the options used become effective after the document has been saved, and re-opened. OTH, the System and Page margin dialogs work on the active score, in real time, but only on such bits of the score as currently exist.
The manual is very thorough, but attempting to get a copy of a piano piece to lay on the page like I want is a push-me-pull-you affair between the various dialogs. Does anyone have a link to a discussion about these dialog relationships or can recommend a text book?
Here's the way I would do this:
1) enter all of the music in your piano work, and save the file;
2) re-open the file containing your piano music;
3) at the same time as the file opened in 2, create a new file, (starting with a new "empty document" / "document without libraries" [different names for the same thing; before 2k1 or 2k2, it is an empty document; starting in 2k1 or 2k2, it was renamed) containing the same number of staves with the same clefs as the file you opened in "2".
4) decide what size you want the general page layout, that is, page size reduction, margins, first page drop, title size, &c., and set the page margins using the Page margin dialog box;
5) Set the same margins, page drop, and page reduction percentage in the Page Layout For Score dialog in the file created in number 3;
6) in the file re-opened in number 2, adjust the system, and if necessary, staff reductions, and appropriate system margins;
7) place the same values for system margins, and system reduction in the PLO box;
8} save the libraries from the document re-opened in number 2;
9) load the libraries saved in 8 into the new document created in number 3;
10) save you working document (the one opened in number 2); and finally,
11) save the document created in number 3 as a template.
As things have actually developeed, the "new document" wizard is good enough that a much higher percentage of people use that, than the creators of Finale expected would, at the expense of the number of people who use pre-defined templates. If you want to use the Page layout you selected above, with the setup wizard, load the default template, make the adjustments in PLO / S, and resave the default template as default.tmp.
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