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Melissa Williams Edited
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Hi there!  I am a piano teacher, and I write a lot of music for my students.  This music includes a lot of fingerings.  I'm using Finale Version 27.

I discovered through the magic of YouTube that I can easily add fingerings by holding down the desired finger number and clicking on the note I want to apply it to.  Then, if I'm unhappy with where the fingering is placed, I can select "a" for "above" or "b" for "below."  So far, so good!  This has saved me a lot of time over the old way (painfully selecting each fingering from the articulations menu).

Now I'm getting greedy -- I want my fingerings to line up neatly above the notes.  Like this example:

Currently, I go back after all the fingerings are in and manually try to line them up, not always successfully, I might add!  Is there a way to line them up better?  Maybe there's a plugin I'm not aware of?  I already possess Perfect Layout -- is there a setting on Perfect Layout that would fix this problem that I just don't see?

Thank you for your wisdom.  I'm sure this question has been asked before, but I've been searching the forum for the last 20 minutes, and I can't seem to find it.

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PETER THOMSEN Edited
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1) It is not clear to me, what Finale tool you are using for piano fingerings ?

 

2) It is not clear to me, whether “line up” means vertically or horizontally, or both ?

 

2) Some users create compound, multi-number fingerings as shapes, with an opaque background to hide the staff-lines behind the numbers.

Like this (only one shape, with three numbers):

 

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Melissa Williams Posted
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Peter, thank you for the reply!  Sorry I wasn't clear.

I am using articulations to enter my fingerings.

By "line up," I mean I'd like my fingerings to appear above the staff (or below the staff, for bass clef fingerings) in a neat line, as in the example I posted.  So fingerings would be horizontally aligned with each other in a line above the staff and vertically aligned above the notes they apply to.

Thanks for the tip about using shapes!  I might try that in some instances.  

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PETER THOMSEN Posted
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… I am using articulations to enter my fingerings …

 

You can also use the Expression Tool, or the Lyrics Tool.

I mostly prefer the Expression Tool because I can position expressions precisely, by numbers.

What works best (Articulation Tool, Lyrics Tool, Expression Tool), depends on the actual context.

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Melissa Williams Posted
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Thank you so much for suggesting the Expression Tool.  I looked into it, and, yeah, that's exactly what I need!

I found this YouTube video describing how to make custom fingerings with the expression tool.  Looks like they're going to line up above the staff how I want them to.  I had no idea to look at the Expression Tool to do this, so thank you!

 

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MIKE HALLORAN Posted
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Hi Melissa, 

 

Now that you have this working, it is a good idea to edit the title of your original post to add the word, RESOLVED. This will help others searching for the solution to this same issue.

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Melissa Williams Posted
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Ah, will do!  thanks!

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