Two ideas:

1) Instead of using mi for minor, use - (= one character instead of two characters).

2) Instead of using the “slanted” fraction line, try the horizontal fraction line:

Hey Peter...

Thanks for the reply and for your suggestion. This could work, but I have two follow-up questions…

1. Do you think the mix of standard and stacked slash chord symbols in the same chart would be confusing for the player? Converting all the slash chords to the stacked version wouldn't look good, IMO. 

2. Is there a way to make the horizontal line in the stacked polychord symbol bolder? It seems like a very fine line and perhaps easy to miss.

Thanks again.

Finale Mac 25.5 / OS 12.6 / 64gB RAM

1. I think that the “mix of standard and stacked chord symbols in the same chart” would be confusing.

2. I have not found a way to make the horizontal line bolder.

It seems like its thickness is scaled with the staff size.

However, here is another idea:

Use a smaller font size for the chord symbols.

The horizontal line will look bolder since it keeps the same thickness, while the chord symbols get smaller.

Also, the smaller chord symbols will take less horizontal space.

One idea more:

Instead of using the ready made chord suffixes, consider designing your own collection of suffixes that take less horizontal space.

It is time consuming to create a full collection of custom suffixes, but you only have to do it once.

Save the suffixes as a library that you can load into other documents.

Thanks again.

I have created some custom chord symbols and like having control over the spacing of the letterforms (both horizontally and vertically), though that wouldn’t solve my issue with “slash chords”... unless I were to create slash-suffixes for every possible bass note (/C, /C#, /D-flat, etc.). It would be possible, I suppose.

It appears I’m in a “workaround” situation here. I do appreciate all the suggestions. Thanks, again.

Peter, the only issue with the horizontal line under the chord is that many musicians interpret that as a polychord, or one triad over another, etc.  I am one of those musicians and that's how I would play it; at least until told otherwise.  And I agree that a mix of the two methods would likely cause confusion, wasting valuable time.  Just me two cents.

I agree, J D. Good point.

Another thought: is there a way to change the (point) size of just one chord symbol and not all chord symbols universally?

Finale 25.5 / Mac OS 10.12.6 (Sierra) / 64gB RAM

You could always create any chord symbol using the expression tool, not the chord tool. That would allow you to make it any point size you want. It wouldn't playback though, if that's a concern.

Yeah, this is terrible. I have a few things I resort to.

1. Put two chords on each beat, one Abm7 and the other Gb. Drag them into place and add the diagonal slash as an expression. You should be able to make it auto-position if you have a lot of them. You can make the slash any size you like, too.

2. In some other layer, add in 16th and 32nd rests to open up space. You would need to use a staff style to hide them because it is most likely that hiding them in Speedy by hitting O would prevent them from being noticed for spacing purposes. If that works, hey great! But I have some documents with that arcane setting checked or unchecked. The best thing about this fix is that it survives a "space music" command.

3. I would reduce the size of the flat in the chord name. I noticed that it is some giant point size in the default that MakeMusic supplies, and it could be 2/3 of that size. That would save some space and increase readability too.

Don't use the horizontal slash for alternate bass notes. It means a polychord and most musicians WILL interpret it that way. Don't confuse things!

There is no easy way to resize chords. All the present methods (including plugins) destroy stacked suffixes. Complain to MakeMusic about this. Alternatively, you can add a hidden staff to your part, resize it, and attach chords to that instead, which will resize with the staff. This is the biggest kludge in existence and it is unconscionable that we have to do things like that to do something that computers are supposed to be able to do easily.

Thanks, Jeffrey... Good thought on creating chord symbols in the expression tool, though having them being non-transposing would be a problem for my current project.

Although venting here makes you feel better, please submit your complaint to Finale by using the Submit a Request tab at the top of the page. That way, they can’t use their favorite excuse, “This is the first time we’ve heard of this problem.”

Agree wholeheartedly, Christopher. I like your idea of putting part of a symbol on different parts of a beat... will try it, and also reducing the size of sharps and flats. (I already reduced the size of the chord symbol, based on an earlier suggestion.)

There are some good tools for creating custom chord symbols that provide ways to adjust positioning... moving part of the symbol up and tucking another part under (like in a 13 sus4) helps, but getting that bass note in tight to the slash is the big problem. I could build the whole thing (including the bass note), but it obviously wouldn’t transpose.

I’m currently working on transcribing a Take 6 arrangement with a lot of densely-packed chords which each have complicated extensions and often substituted bass notes. Unless I’m doing 2-3 bars to the system, it can get really crowded. I could solve it if I was writing it by hand, but Finale makes it challenging.

Hi Mike,

Were you talking to me about venting? It wasn't ordinary venting. I was just pointing out that resizing the chord symbols to save space was not an easy solution to this problem. I gave three other workarounds, and suggested making an official complaint to MakeMusic.

And to Richard, I wasn't actually suggesting attaching the parts to different beats. In fact, doing it that way might make it NOT survive a music respacing. I would keep each part attached to the correct place, and drag them over while holding the Alt key down (to make sure they don't attach somewhere else!)

Chris,

If I misunderstood your tone, I apologize. And I agree, chords need a total rewrite. Along with lyrics. And a lot of other things, not the least of which is this lousy forum software...