don't do it, man!
document bloat: open a new doc with no libraries, create a metatool-defined shape expression (text or articulation, it's the same in the shape designer). metatool-assign expression twice. create new shape expression -> edit -> select. oh look the first shape i created is duplicated! this is slated to be fixed... sometime... for the moment, i am working on a repeat saveas-erasedata-saveas-erasedata doc from a client which was 4.3 MB when i got it, with 11600+ shape expressions, more than 90% of which are copies.
although this is an extreme case, my suggestion nonetheless is to bite the bullet and take the time to create a template to cover your main needs, and when you find yourself changing parameters in a score created from the template, do the changes in the template as well. after awhile, you won't need to adjust very often.
if you do the doc from scratch, it shouldn't be that big and cumbersome, so you can easily deal with having all your most common wind/brass/string instrument text indications and articulations in the file, even if you don't use them in every score generated from the template. create libraries for specific symbols or groups of symbols you don't use that often (eg. short 5-line staff for clef changes from perc staves to 5-line staves; guitar finger/string notation; harp pedals; text expression list for a particular client/composer, etc.), place them in a folder outside the finale folder (so they don't get accidentally erased in reinstalls of finale) and set the libraries path to your custom library folder.
jef
--
shirling & neueweise \................/ new music notation specialists mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] :.../ http://newmusicnotation.com _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
