Hello Alex,

Though I think I know what you're talking about, the image in your link is broken. Would you mind trying to post it again?

Thanks for your quick response, CJ. I have added a jpg version of the image to the link. Both the pdf and the jpg versions are intact when I go to the link.

All best,

Alex

Hello Alex,

Yes, this is what I thought you meant. There's an easy way to do this, but it doesn't look exactly like what you posted:





And there's a more difficult way, but it will look like exactly what you posted. If the easy way is good enough for you, I'd be happy to run you through it! If you want that line of the left to go away and your music to actually start at measure 1, I can run you through that as well. Be forewarned, there are many steps.

Simple answer: you cannot get rid of that vertical line. Through all of Finale's customization and ability to do many things, the line that connects two or more staves is always there and not editable.

I'll make two posts for each method. First the "easy" way:

1. Grab the Staff tool and set your staves to all be in one group with the bracket starting at measure 2. Be sure to select "Only On Staves"

2. Grab the Page Layout Tool and uncheck "Page Layout > Avoid Margin Collisions"

3. Lock the first measure as one system (Utilities > Fit Measures) and then lock measures 2 through whatever as another system. You can also select measure 2 with the Select Tool, press return, and change the Measure Attribute Behavior to be "Begin a New Staff System." I prefer locking measures.

4. Set the margins for system one to be something like this (I'm using EVPUS):

5. And then set the system margins for system 2 to be something like this (be sure that the "distance between staves" is a negative number):


You should then see something like this:


Well refine our margins more later...

6. Select the Staff Tool, highlight measure 1, and press "B" (or select "Blank Notation Layer 1")


7. Grab the Select Tool and select measure 1, then press return to pull up the Measure Attributes box. For the right barline settings, select "Invisible", uncheck "include in measure numbering", check "hide cautionary clefs, key, and time signatures", and select the pull down "always hide" near "Time Signature" and "Key Signature"




You should get something like this:


8. Change all of the clefs with the Clef Tool, but be sure to only have them apply to from measure 1 to measure 1

Now your first and second measure should look like this:


Oh, and to make the staff names disappear on ONLY the second system, I created a staff style to only hide staff names. To do that, grab the Staff Tool, select all the staves in measure 2, right click and select "Define Staff Styles." In the Staff Styles box, press "New" and call it whatever you'd like, I called mine "22. Hide Staff Names." The easiest way to make that happen is to leave everything alone and just uncheck "Staff Name in Score" near the bottom right.

Then apply that staff style to all the staves in measure 2 and you should get the result above.

10. Grab the Select Tool, select measure 2 and press return. Select the pull down "Always Show" near "Time Signatures" to show your time signature.

From this point, all you need to do is adjust system margins to wherever you like them and change your staff names in the score manager and you should be good to go!

Now for the "hard" way...

1. Grab the Expression Tool and double click measure 1 on your first staff. Then go to the miscellaneous category and press "Create Misc. Expression..."

2. Press the button near "Shape" and uncheck "Allow Horizontal Stretching"

3. Press "Create" 

4. Welcome to Shape Designer! We are going to draw and place our clefs as our own expressions! To start, go up into the menu "Shape Designer > Show > Staff Template." This helps place our shape a lot easier and get a sense of scaling.



5. Zoom in to about 400% so that the staff is nice a big. Grab the text tool in the shape designer box and click somewhere in the active drawing space. Go up into the menu "Shape Designer > Select Font..." and choose Maestro 24pt. Press "OK"

6. Now Press "=" and a staff character should appear. Grab the select tool in the shape designer box and line it up with the staff template, should look something like this:

7. Now grab the text tool in the shape designer box again, click somewhere in the drawing area, select the font, and then type a capital "B." This will get you your C clef symbol.


8. First we will just make a regular alto clef and place the C clef where that would be by dragging and dropping with the select tool in the shape designer box. When you get something close to this, press "OK" and then Press "OK" again in the Expression Designer box.


9. Back in the Expression Designer, select the positioning tab and make your settings match this and then press "OK"


Now we have a "template" for our clefs

11. Duplicate that expression three times by pressing "Duplicate" at the bottom of the Expression Selection box 3 times so that we have the number of different clefs we will be using.

12. Edit the clefs by arranging the C clef position up and down to match your music. The treble clef is the "&" symbol in the Maestro Font.

13. Assign each expression to each staff and then drag the staff names by using the staff tool and you should get something like this:

Hope that helps and make sense. Shape designer can be tricky and can take a while to master. But this will get you the result you're looking for I believe, but the extra steps don't make it easy... Let me know if you have any more questions!

CJ Garcia wrote:

“Simple answer: you cannot get rid of that vertical line. Through all of Finale's customization and ability to do many things, the line that connects two or more staves is always there and not editable.”

It seems to me that I can go to the Measure Attributes, and choose “Invisible” for the Left Barline.

Am I missing something here?

You are correct Peter! I honestly don't know why I've been thinking that for long... Good catch!

Fantastic! Thanks to you , CJ, and to Peter for solving the problem. Now I can do everything I have wanted for many years with regard to introductory measures.

Alex