Templates

On searching another matter, I came upon a discussion where users were having difficulty with Finale imperiously re-forming their work. I have found the best thing to do is make my own templates. I size the score so it doesn't run to the edges (and thus you can 3-hole punch your copies); use a 16-bold, easy-to-read font (so regular people can see the words); choose whatever instruments I plan on using, and most important, clone whatever I have come up with ("save as", give it a new title and erase all editing, starting then with a clean score) and even save it as a template in a main folder. Saves aggravation, time, worry, all that. And I save everything to an off-computer hard drive, and print hard copies of everything. Am I paranoid?

I've got Finale 27-something, on Windows 10.

The problem with Finale templates is it doesn't save everything. Like it won't save you instruments and other features you may have decided on. My better way is to make the template exactly the way you want it all instrument in, all fonts as you prefer, rehearsal numbers and marks, library, spacing, groups, etc. Everything and save it as a musx file. I made one of these for my most common types of work. Perhaps a dozen or so.

It is a simple task to do small edits as the new composition wants. Example my concert band large time sig template. I set it up with 100 measures and edit what I need but the large part of it is done. Perhaps you don't want bassoon. Just delete and reposition. Or maybe you need chimes, etc. Add instrument in Score Manager. Easy.

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