So save your formatting till the end?

I'm not sure I experience that situation, at least not that often.

(Having to reformat occasionally doesn't bother me that much.)

My system margins don't change when I add, delete or edit measures within.  As J Adrain wrote, you can apply a system spacing of your choice from say system 2 through the end. The systems will retain that setting until you change it.

Make sure and check your Page Format settings for that parameter.

… the vertical distance between the new measures is no longer that 1 inch you specified …

You probably mean the vertical distance between new systems, right?

When it is creating new systems / pages in a score, Finale uses the settings in

Document menu > Page Format > Score…

Finale allows already existing systems / pages to be formatted differently than the default formatting for new systems.

This is what users have requested.

In Other Words:

To fix your problem, edit the default formatting for new systems / pages in the score.

Fortunately there is a simple way to do this (rather than changing the settings one by one):

Page Layout Tool.

Page layout menu > Update page Format for Score (select this menu item)

Edit the system margins in one of the systems that are formatted as desired, by changing one of the system margins to something else.

Then change the margin back to what it was (not via Undo!).

When you now take a look in

Document menu > Page Format > Score…

you will see that the settings for system margins have been updated.

NB:

The setting “Update page Format for Score” is program specific, not document specific.

When you are done fixing the default formatting, you might like to de-select “Update page Format for Score” - before you close this document, and open another document.

Thank you so much, Peter Thomsen.  This is a huge help.    

This screen shot illustrates what i was describing.  SYSTEMS / EDIT MARGINS / TOP had been set to 1".   However, when i made bar 18 wider to accommodate the 4 chords, a new system was generated.  It's top margin was far less than the 1" requested. 

Craig Buhler,

Is your screen shot showing the score - or one of the linked parts?

If it is a linked part, then you should not examine the settings in

Document menu > Page Format > Score…

but rather the settings in

Document menu > Page Format > Parts…

That screen shot shows the score.   This was before i implemented the procedure you suggested above, which appears to solve the problem

By The Way:

There is a way to “reset” already existing systems / pages to the default formatting:

Page Layout Tool.

Page Layout menu > Redefine Pages…

Thank you once again.    Members of the Finale Community such as yourself have greatly enhanced my life.