1. Add a measure stack at the start of the composition.
2. Make it one beat long (either by designating it as a pickup or by making it a 1/4 measure that shows the 4/4--or whatever-- time sig).
3. Double-click the (now) second measure of the composition.
4. SHIFT-Click+END (if you are in Windows). At any rate, you want to select all staves from measure 2 to the end of the music.
5. Drag the selection left to put the pickup note in the pickup measure.
6. Clean up any extra note(s) in the last measure of the composition.

I tried to follow the instructions by J Adrian and it did not work. It simply deleted my pick up measure stack. version 25.4.1.152

His instructions should have worked for you. Where did your problem occur?

At the beginning of the piece. There are over 50 measures and SINCE FINALE DOESN'T HAVE PDF CONVERSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry about that, I would never have upgraded, etc... you've heard it all before, but I digress.

So, I used another product to change a vector pdf to xml then imported it. So far so good. Problem was that the pick up measure in the original was ignored. So the whole piece started one 1/8 off (6/8 with a single beat pick up).

Can you show us a screenshot of the start of your music with a description of what you want to change?

Fnale's PDF conversion has been a source of problems since it was introduced. Third-party PDF creators have been used with no problems. Another suggestion would be to use the Graphics tool, to Export as a PDF. Both work fine.

I'm assuming you used something like Music-to-XML to convert the PDF to XML. In my experience, they don't work all that well. In fully featured programs, like SmartScore, you have the opportunity to edit, before exporting as XML. That's where this would be fixed. But since you didn't, you have to fix the problem in Finale.

If you send me the Finale file at wawoodman at aol dot com, I can give you better advice. Although, as I said, J Adrian's instructions looked good to me.

Well, this is odd. I followed those instructions in both F26 and F25. And it didn't work! I am at a loss to explain why. So, I inserted 4/4 measure at the front, and dragged the score back, to where it was correct. Of course, it added rests in front of that pickup note. "No problem," sez I. I'll change the time signature of that measure, and all will be well. But it wasn't! It change the TS correctly, but it loaded about 6 measures in front! I selected and deleted them, and finally got where I needed to be.

But this is not a good thing. I'm sending it in to tech support.

Thanks MIke! I thought that I was losing my mind. I too did a work around. I added a measure AFTER the pickup (which was blank) made it 9/8 and I was able to shift the piece to the left. but something weird happened and it added 50 new measures! When I tried to delete the extra measures the whole kit and kaboodle locked up and I lost the file.  Now I have to find out what I used to convert the stupid thing with in the beginning! Oh bother.

So currently, I cannot give J Adrian a screenshot because I lost everything! Puh.