Maybe I should add: Finale 26.0.0.703  - MacOS 10.13.6

Hi Johann, 

I can see how this would cause some problems with your workflow for sure. I am not entirely sure where the issue is occurring but I have tested this with Apple's TextEdit program and the issue does not replicate when copying with this program. This editor is installed by default with your OS and is a very basic text editor.Try using this and see if you get different results. I did see expected results on my end. 

I type my lyrics into Pages. Then I run them through Jucio Brennan’s Lyric Hyphenator. https://juiciobrennan.com/hyphenator/ (Check everything. Twice.) I paste them into the lyric window, and use click-assign. This seems to work fine, for me.

Thank you for the reactions.

Mike Rosen: the Lyric Hyphenator is not an option, it only works for english lyrics, mine are in dutch/flemish and the hyphenator clearly has no clue.

Example of wrong automatic hyphenation:

Op maandagochtend g-ing hij naar haar heen
Hij kon niet lang-er wachten
Hij sprak, mijn lief, hi-er ben ik heel alleen
Laat mij niet lang-er smachten

Should be, according to the rules (https://woordenlijst.org/leidraad/18):

Op maan-dag-och-tend ging hij naar haar heen
Hij kon niet lan-ger wach-ten
Hij sprak, mijn lief, hier ben ik heel al-leen
Laat mij niet lan-ger smach-ten

Wordprocessors like Word, Pages etc... can correctly hyphenate dutch words at the end of a sentence but none of them have the option to hyphenate every word in a chosen textfragment, as far as I know.

David Cusick: TextWrangler is a plain text editor, Apple's Textedit is not.

-> when I type lyrics in it while it's NOT in plain text mode, then the copy/paste works with CR/LF intact. But Finale keeps the font that was used in Textedit, not the lyrics font that was chosen in Finale.

-> when I convert it to plain text, then the copy/paste behaves like with TextWrangler: CR/LF are gone but the lyric font choice of Finale is respected. This problem did'nt exist before.

I tried it with Pages now: all text formatting is preserved after copy/paste to Finale, including the chosen font..

So I'll create some paragraph-styles in Pages to mimic my favourite lyric fonts choices in Finale and will prepare lyrics in Pages from now on.

I did not use Pages before because not all fonts in my system show up in the standard font choices in Pages but I found a way around that now.

In case you don't believe the problem is TextWrangler: From Bare Bones Software:

TextWrangler is now part of BBEdit. We have sunsetted TextWrangler, and BBEdit has changed to make room for TextWrangler users. You can use BBEdit instead; it’s still free to use the same set of features that TextWrangler provided.

Please see our Q&A on switching to BBEdit from TextWrangler.

TextWrangler is not compatible with macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) or later, and will not run on macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or later.

BBEdit 13 requires macOS 10.14.2 or later. If your Mac does not meet this requirement you can download an older version of BBEdit.

Thank you for this clarification, Mike Halloran. I was indeed not aware of this, there has never been a warning from within TextWrangler that I should switch to BBedit for this reason. Also I did not find any other problem with TextWrangler under Mac OS High Sierra ... so far. It figures though: I still keep Mac OS 10.12 (Sierra) on my Macbook Pro since also FileMaker Pro 11 and Adobe Acrobat Pro 11 with a "lifetime license" stopped working after updating my main computer tot High Sierra and no updates are offered other then paying the full price again for a newer version.

But ...

I downloaded BBEdit - latest version: it cannot work with MacOS High Sierra.

So I downloaded BBEdit v12.6.7 and it behaves exactly like TextWrangler, as promised. It even has the exact same problem when I copy/paste to the Lyrics Window in Finale. So back to start.

FileMaker Pro 11 (with restrictions) and Acrobat Pro 11 still work over Mojave for me — I had to re-download Acrobat Pro to make it work and FileMaker 11 will not sort or let me add fields. Unfortunately, upgrading both so that they work over Catalina is going to cost me over $1,000 — ouch! Planning to do both this month or next so that I can upgrade to Catalina (right now, running it on an underpowered MBP).

So-called “lifetime licenses” don’t entitle us to free version upgrades from major companies and never did — just means that we don’t have to renew for them to keep working at all. In this case, the companies are Apple and HP. It’s nice that they lasted 8 years 

> So back to start<

Really? Text.app works fine and is part of the MacOS. Send this to Tech Support if you have to though the Submit a request link and someone like David can help you directly.

I use Word and it’s fine.

Text.app works fine as a simple wordprocessor, I agree, but as I said before: TextWrangler is a plain text editor, Apple's Textedit is not by default. If you put it in plain text-mode, Finale 26's Lyric Window has the same problem with it.

-> when I type lyrics in it while it's NOT in plain text mode, then the copy/paste works with CR/LF intact. But it overrides the font settings in Finale.
-> when I convert it to plain text, then the copy/paste behaves like with TextWrangler: CR/LF are gone but the lyric font specified in Finale is respected.

This problem did'nt exist before, but I changed my workflow now and use Pages because I can use a template with stylesheets to ensure the use of lyric fonts is consistent. So by avoiding the problem this way I can work faster.

Thank you all for the interesting discussion that lead to this solution.

One more time.

TextWrangler is not only unsupported freeware, the developer states it no longer works. The notion that it’s an issue with Finale or ever could be is moot.

MM Support has come on and offered to help with an app that is part of the Mac OS — meaning that it’s supported.

Time to move on. Focus on how to get the job done and not on how you used to do it — that doesn’t work anymore and possibly never will. The goal is to get lyrics to work properly, not to use unsupported apps to do the entry.

"TextWrangler is not only unsupported freeware, the developer states it no longer works. The notion that it’s an issue with Finale or ever could be is moot." That's not the point. Finale 26 has this problem with EVERY plain text editor, including BBedit and Text.app in plain text mode. This was not the case before Finale 26, it worked fine in Finale 2014.5 and earlier regardless of the Mac OS version. So it has nothing to do with obsolete freeware.

Does it matter? Does anyone besides you care?

You have a workaround, with Pages. Let it go.

I'm fine with using Finale Lyrics to type in the text except that it will not allow me to put dashes in between syllables. So  Mike - do I have to delete my text then go through the procedure described in your original comment on this topic just to get a few dashes in the text? Btw, I think I would be using Word, don't think I have Pages.

 Mac or Windows?

If Mac, Pages is a free download from Apple in the App Store.

If Windows, best to use the Submit a request link at the top of the page and ask Support directly. Windows has a text tool but I haven’t used it in over 15 years.

I would love to ask Support, but the last time I did, I was informed that they are no longer giving techical help unless it is a break/fix issue. So we now have nowhere to go for personalized help except this forum. I'm using Windows; will try the text tool. Thank you.

I've suffered through this same bug, and I think it is a bug.  Here is what I have found:

Until the last year or so, (maybe upgrade to Finale 25), you could paste in lyrics either plain text or rich formatted text, and the line feeds would paste as expected.  However, now, and this is still the case with Finale 26, if you paste in plain text, not only from BBEdit or Text Wrangler but from any text editor, Finale's Lyrics window will annoyingly strip your newlines – it does not matter if your newlines are carriage return (CR), line feed (LF) or both (CRLF); that is: Linux, Mac or Windows style.  All of them are stripped.

The workround is to only paste into Finale's Lyrics from an app which is producing rich text.  TextEdit and Pages produce rich text by default.  BBEdit, TextEdit, or most text editors, cannot produce rich text.

This is a bug in Finale, as far as I am concerned.  Finale's Lyrics window should accept plain text, as it did until recently.

I do my lyrics and any long text inserts in Pages, and everything is fine.

Whether it’s a bug on their part, or unmet expectations on yours, learn to live with it if you want to continue using Finale. They are unwilling / unable to fix anything. There is a workaround, so, use it.

>…The workround is to only paste into Finale's Lyrics from an app which is producing rich text.  TextEdit and Pages produce rich text by default.  BBEdit, TextEdit, or most text editors, cannot produce rich text.

This is a bug in Finale, as far as I am concerned.  Finale's Lyrics window should accept plain text, as it did until recently.<

That’s just silly. It’s a bug only if the developers built 26 to support plain text lyric entry. They clearly didn’t. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and state that many of the improvements in 26 that allow Finale to display correctly on 5K monitors (Mac only) and web pages cannot happen with simple text. I give no chance of it reverting. Although 25 still works over Mojave, I use 26 on my 5K iMac Pro — quite an improvement.

Interesting that you claim Apple’s TextEdit (part of the OS) defaults to rtf and cannot produce it. You’re half wrong. It’s a global style choice that affects the entire document — once made to the doc, subsequent documents will be the same until you change it. Open an old doc, check a box and now the entire file is rtf — or not depending on the check.

Ok, BBE doesn’t support rtf. Yea… that’s not the point of a code editor, is it? (No, it isn’t). So how many Macs that run Finale 26 do not have a built-in text tool that supports rtf? Trick question — the correct answer is none. And yes, Pages, Apple’s word processing app, is free, too.