Many of us have found over the years that printing through a designated PDF printer works far better than exporting to PDF using Finale's internal PDF routine.

For your other question, you should use the "Submit a request" link at the top of the page to submit this font trouble to MakeMusic Support. The link will allow you to attach a file that illustrates the problem for inspection by support folks at Finale.

I have been exporting as a PDF graphic. I don’t remember who suggested it, but it works great for me.

You're using Windows so I can't really comment but I've seldom had problems with Finale not recognising properly-installed fonts. I use a number of third party fonts for all sorts of projects and the only problems I usually encounter have to do with fonts which have been renamed. Usually it's enough to point Finale in the right direction. The fonts for lyrics should certainly not be a problem for Finale to recognise. Perhaps you could post a file here for us to look at.

What Vaughan says. The key is properly-installed fonts. In Windows, once you set the paths properly, Finale should have no problem finding and using them.

These issues are easier to fix on the Mac but not that hard to fix in Windows as long as you have Administrator privileges.

I am an administrator on my computer and I do install my fonts properly. I'm a graphic designer, so fonts are one of my tools of trade. I am currently working with a MakeMusic support associate in an attempt to figure this out. Thanks for the comments.

Diane,

some fonts are difficult to get to work correctly in Finale as Finale not always uses the same font name as other Windows software.

Have a look at this article on fonts in Finale, maybe it helps? It has a quick troubleshooting guide at the end of the article.

https://elbsound.studio/font-names-in-finale.php

OK, folks. After working with Finale and reading the article Jan provided above, I have found a work around. I don't say a solution because this is definitely a problem caused by poor programming within Finale, but it is a workaround that gets me what I need. 

Instead of looking for the font in Finale's list of available fonts, I have to first open Microsoft Word and select the desired font from the font menu in Word, then copy that font name from the font dialogue and paste it into Finale's font dialogue and then click OK. The font is not found in Finale's visible list but it does work when the name of the font matches Microsoft's version of the font name. 

Whew! I appreciate all the help.

Hi, 

I'm glad that you found a workaround but your issue really is Microsoft or rather, your misunderstanding of how this all works. Please read and learn:

As Vaughn and I wrote: "The key is properly-installed fonts." You told us that wasn't the issue—but it was.

Many MS applications, including Office, come bundled with fonts intended for use within those applications only. Besides Microsoft, many companies do this including Adobe, Apple and MakeMusic. Using another's application specific fonts is not something that MakeMusic gets to program. It's the Office Installer that hides those fonts—Finale doesn't get to look inside MS apps and use those fonts—that's up to you. Fortunately, this is easy.

What you call a workaround is fairly simple. In order that other apps may use these application-specific fonts, you need to make them available to all applications. Presumably, MM Support has shown you how to do this and now you can do it for any application. It's been years since I've fired up my Win 7 computer and I'm not doing it for this.

It's the same for Mac applications. If the app contains fonts within the application itself only, it will not be available to other apps. Mac fonts need to be installed in Library/Fonts to be available to all apps. 

Fonts can be coded so that, even if installed in a general directory, they aren't available to other apps. Most proprietary notation fonts cannot be used in other notation apps. For example, I can't use Finale fonts in Encore or Notion and vise-versa even though I've reinstalled them in Library/Fonts. Fortunately, Microsoft Office fonts do not have this limitation and MS makes them readily available for download.

Mike,

there are some known Finale issues with font names on Windows - these are not Microsoft bugs. These text fonts usually work in every (!) Windows program, but not in Finale. The article above ( https://elbsound.studio/font-names-in-finale.php ) lists and explains these Windows problems and gives solutions.

To me it sounds like Diane used the first method suggested in the article: "Type the name manually in the font dialog instead of selecting the font name from the font list" - though she didn't type it manually, but used copy&paste with the font name. This is successful if Finale only accepts font names different (!) from those that Finale lists in its own dialogs.

Mike, Jan is correct. This is not a font installation issue, no matter how much you arrogantly assume that I have no idea what I am doing with fonts.

It appears that Finale has problems interpreting names on some non-Microsoft fonts. My company uses a specialized branded body font that is professionally purchased, but because it is a high-end professional font, it has multiple weights (thin, light, regular, book, medium, bold, semibold, black) and italic for each weight ... something that Microsoft programs typically struggle with. I use professional layout programs (Adobe) to do most of my work, and usually avoid Microsoft anything as a rule. I had no idea that there were programs out there that would list the installed fonts, but not use them because they can't interpret the multiple weights.

Working with the Finale rep was useful. He did first check to make sure my fonts were installed properly (which they were), and then checked to make sure that I had proper administrative access on my workstation (which I did), and then we tried typing the font name and weight into the font dialogue box (based on the name of the font as it appeared in the Windows/Font folder), which didn't work. It wasn't until I read the article that Jan shared and the rep asked me to give him screen shots of how other applications on my computer named the font, that I figured out the magic method to get Finale to use the fonts. I had to type the font name with no spaces, hyphen, the weight of the font into the font dialogue font blank and make sure the font style was set to regular. This forces Finale to display the correct font and weight. If I select the same font from the font list and choose the weight from the style list, Finale substitutes a system font. This IS a bug in Finale. The rep acknowledged that it was and that he was passing on our email discussion to the development team.

I came back and offered this information in case some other user has the same issue that I have, since your answers especially were not very helpful.

>My company uses a specialized branded body font that is professionally purchased, but because it is a high-end professional font, it has multiple weights (thin, light, regular, book, medium, bold, semibold, black) and italic for each weight ..<

You told us none of this in your original post. I certainly could have helped you had I known.

>I had to type the font name with no spaces, hyphen, the weight of the font into the font dialogue font blank and make sure the font style was set to regular. <

Yes, that is often what one must do with certain fonts in Windows. When I worked on a Win support desk, I had to navigate these issues on a regular basis. You've presented nothing new—except to us.

Microsoft wrote Windows and Office. What you are calling bugs, they call it the way things are done. 

Mike,

If you knew this was a common issue in Finale, then why did you jump to the assumption that I had the fonts installed wrong? Quite honestly, when someone comes here asking for help, it's often because they don't know what questions to ask. Jan's single paragraph offered up a solution that matched my problem (without me having to explain what the problem was, since I obviously didn't know what the problem was or I wouldn't have been here asking for help). BTW, not all the fonts that I have issues with are multi-weight, so I honestly don't think that is the real issue here.

Also, my problem is not with Microsoft Windows and Office (and I never said it was), it is an issue with Finale. The fonts work just fine in Word, which is where I ended up finding the workaround to Finale's bug after reading the article Jan suggested and getting a request from the Finale rep to look at how other programs listed the fonts.

(I'm not insulting Microsoft, btw, with my comment about avoiding anything Microsoft. I use Microsoft Windows by preference when almost all of my coworkers are on Macs. I could easily be on a Mac, but have always preferred a Windows environment for multiple reasons. How Office programs use styles and fonts are not one of those reasons, but it also is not a reason why I avoid using those apps. If you know any graphic designers, you'll find that we all have the same disdain for Office apps. It's built into the breed.)

There are lots of things I would offer up as improvements to the way Finale uses fonts and text, but I refrain from that because I'm probably the only (or one of a select few) graphic designer who attempt to use the program. I'm mostly comfortable with the clunky way that Finale handles text. It's a necessary cog in my workflow to get beautiful sheet music products to our customers. Now that I have a workaround to get my fonts to work in the program, I am content to move onto something else.

This post will hopefully be of help to someone needing help with using more than the basic system fonts in Finale, and who find this thread while searching for font compatibility in Finale. This is not in Finale's documentation or Help files, so I'm offering it here as a help to those who are looking for some kind of help (like I was).

First read this article: ( https://elbsound.studio/font-names-in-finale.php )

If you select a font from the Finale font dialog box and you get substitution instead of the font like below.

You can either go to a Microsoft Office app to see how the font is named there, or you can edit an expression to find the hidden correct font list within Finale (I found this completely by accident):

The Character Settings dialog will then give you access to the name once you have selected it from this list if you would like to copy it for use in a different font dialog window:

The font preview within the dialog box does not work when you type out or paste the correct font name into the field instead of selecting the font. You will have to apply it to see if you have the correct font.

Hope this helps someone like me struggling with fonts in Finale. Maybe this will be fixed in future releases of the program.

>If you knew this was a common issue in Finale,<

Once again, you misunderstand. This is a Windows issue, not a Finale issue. Macs have other font issues. Yes, Finale does not behave like any word processor—but it never has. You need to know the workarounds—and now you do. Had you stated the problem clearly, it could have been solved sooner.

Stop trying to assign blame. It's tiring. Software from three companies doesn't always mesh the way we want. Yes, three. Your font company is part of the issue.

 Microsoft doesn't always follow standards—that's a running joke that I had with their top research scientist (recently retired). 

I'm done with this thread.

Diane,

I think if you examine the many posts Mike has posted here, you will find he has been broadly helpful but like all of us here does need sufficient information to work with. Each of us gives the best information we can based on the info given. Jan is broadly familiar with the inner workings of Finale and its plug-ins over an extended period of time and could therefore suggest supplementary information should Mike's original suggestions not work.

Since you are apparently irked at what you see as others questioning your expertise, you will be sensitive, I'm sure, to those who are trying to help you.