Katherine Hoover wrote:
I'm working on a Mac OS 10, with Finale 2004. I would like to combine two files (parts for movements 1 & 2) into one. I couldn't find information under "combine" or under "merge". How can i do this?
[Note: My experience is that trying to merge files involves a lot of fiddly work, and I don't usually bother. If I edit a work which contains multiple movements each in its own file, my first choice is to adjust the page layouts of the first and last pages of a file so if I run a page containing the last page of one movement through the printer again, the first page of the next movement prints in the correct space on the page. I would not bother trying to merge files except for very good reason.]
the experience of others may be different, but my experience informs me that this has to be a manual operation. My experience also informs me that lyrics do not merge well, and the steps below assume that the two movements do NOT have lyrics. Also, while I saw your message a couple days ago, I'm not now, and never have been, on MAC, but knowing that there are several on the list who are, I deferred to them for the answer, since some keystrokes and mouse actions are different between the two platforms.
1. Make a copy of the file you're going to be combining into. In the following steps, I'm going to call the copy you make the "target file".
2. Compare the staves in the two files, and if they do not match in both quantity and order, add the staves necessary so that they do. For example, suppose the work is for a string quartet, but that the viola is silent in movement 2, and in preparing the finale file, instead of optimizing out the viola part in movement 2, it was omitted entirely. In this event, a viola staff will be have to be added to movement 2 in the same place that it is in movement 1.
2. When there are the same number of staves in the two movements, and the staves are in the same order, add one measure at the end of target file, with the measure in each staff containing no "real notes".
3. Open the target file and the file containing the movement you are merging from in scroll view, and use the "tile horizontally" option from the Windows menu to make as much of both files visible on screen. You'll want to be able to see the last two measures in the target file (the last one, and the one you added in step 2) of the top staff. Again, using the sliders, move the file you are merging from in its window so that you see the last measure of the bottom staff of the movement.
4. In the "mass mover" tool, select the "measure items" option, and select the items from the dialog box that you want to move; then select the "entry items" option, and select the items from the entry items dialog that you want to move. Even if both movements have lyrics, I advise not trying to merge them at this step. Finally, from the "mass mover" dialog, choose the selection "copy and insert".
5. Making sure that the window containing the movement you are merging into the target file is the active window, click on the last movement of the bottom staff to highlight the measure. Now, using the sliders, move the file within the window so you can see the first measure of the top staff. Shift-click to the first measure of the top staff. [Note: this is the proper method to highlight a range of measures in the Windows implementation of Finale 2004; if it doesn't work in MAC, check your documentation for the proper key stroke / mouse actions.]
6. Right-clicking and holding the button on the first selected measure of the top staff of the file you are merging from, move the highlighted region into the other window, so that the top measure of the beginning is over the added measure of the target file. When you release the button, you should have merged the two files, and should have a blank measure at the end.
I have not had very much luck transferring page layouts, and usually wind up adjusting layouts of the merged file manually.
When files contain lyrics, I have had the best luck when I did not try to merge the lyrics by this method. Based upon my experience, if I were called upon to do this, between step 2 and 3 above, I would delete all of the lyrics from the target file (remember, the target file is a copy, so I still have the original). Then after the files were merged, I would use the text editor of my choice, and manually merge the lyrics from each lyric space separately in a scratch file by copying the contents of verse 1 in the first source file to the scratch file, then append the contents of verse 1 in the second file to the contents of the scratch file, then copy the contents of the scratch file to verse 1 of the target file, and use mass click assignment to assign the lyrics [On the Windows platform, the keystroke / mouse combination to do this is to use the mouse to position the cursor in the note where the first lyric is to be, press the shift key, and left click with the mouse.] for the verse. After the lyrics are assigned this way, I use a combination of the "shift lyrics" option of the lyrics tool, and "type into score", to move the lyrics so that they lie under the appropriate note.
Hope this helps ns _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
