While the goal of Finale's development is to achieve the best performance possible, large files may still behave slowly as they increase in size.
One can mitigate sluggishness in Finale by following a couple of key guidelines when working with large files that are exhibiting slowness.
- Make sure that the slow performance is not happening in all documents. You can do this by opening a couple of your smaller files and also checking a newly document newly created using the Setup Wizard (File > New > Document With Setup Wizard) for idle behavior.
- If slow performance appears limited to larger files, try breaking the file up into multiple Finale files. In most cases, larger files fall into the multi-movement, musical, or opera genres (or at least something similar). Break up any existing large files by act, movement, scene, etc. where it seems most natural.
- When looking to create new files for large projects - plan on creating separate files for each movement, act, scene, etc.
While having to work in multiple files for large projects may not be the most ideal for every situation, adhering to these best practices can save you a lot of time working in Finale in the long run.