Controlling Part Name Visibility Using Text Inserts in Finale

Q: I  am having a weird issue with Finale where the part names aren’t showing up in parts (Flute 1 etc.). Any new text I write to create instrument names shows up in each part. How do I make the part names show up correctly?

A: Finale uses a type of “wildcard” text called Inserts for page text which allows the instrument names to show up correctly. Inserts can created for all of the most common text information you would display in your score and parts.

Title, Subtitle, Composer, Arranger, Lyricist, Copyright, etc. each have a corresponding Field in Finale’s Score Manager. These are global text fields that apply throughout the piece. In other words, text items such as the Title and Composer name appear in both the score and the parts. When you type information into the File Info section of the Score Manager (or File>File Info in earlier versions of Finale), the information in these various fields is propagated into the corresponding text Inserts you have placed on the page. Once you exit the dialog, you will see the global score information you entered.

If there is a text Insert on the page, but there is not yet any information filled in for File Info, you will see brackets around the Insert name, such as [Title] or [Composer] or [Copyright]. These brackets tell you that rather than typing directly over this text, you should instead fill in the fields of Score Manager’s File Info (or File>File Info in 2011 and earlier.)

The Instrument Name text Insert is unique in that it doesn’t gather its information from File Info; rather it gets it from the names you assign it (or which have been assigned when new parts are created) in Document > Managed Parts. Unlike the other text inserts above, which are sharing global information across all parts, *this* Insert is placing unique information into each part.

If you happen to delete a text Insert for the title or composer, you might never notice it, because naturally, you’d simply retype the title or composer text on the page. Because this global information is common to all parts, it remains visibly the same in the score and parts whether you use the fields in File Info or type the text directly onto the page.  The information contained in the Title, Subtitle, Composer, Arranger, Lyricist, Copyright and Description fields is common to both the score and parts.

However, if the Insert for the Part / Score Name is removed, anything you type directly on the page in the space where the Insert belongs will now appear in every part! If you see the same Instrument name on every part (or nothing at all), it most likely means that the Part / Score Name Insert was inadvertently deleted. . .

To create a new Part / Score Name Insert, first select the Text Tool:

 

 

Now, double click on the existing Instrument Name in the part or score (or double click on the page where the instrument name goes if there is nothing there), and then choose the Part / Score Name Insert, found in Inserts in the Text menu. Any previously assigned Instrument names should now show up again.

 

 

You can edit individual Part Names in the same dialog that you use to create new instruments: Document > Manage Parts…

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SHOW IN PARTS, HIDE IN SCORE

Sometimes, you want the instrument names to show up in the parts, but you don’t want to see “Score”, “Concert Score” or “Transposed Score” in the actual score itself. You don’t want to delete the text Insert, or you won’t see it in the parts. Rather than deleting the text in the score, you can hide it. The trick to making it remain visible in the parts while hiding it in the score is to Unlink the text *before* you hide it, so that only the score’s visibility changes. Select the Part / Score Name text in the score, then right click to show the Contextual Menu. When it comes up, first Unlink the text in all parts, then uncheck Show to hide it in the score:

 

 

For more information on text visibility, see this post. For more information on Inserts (Wildcards) in Finale, see my post from 9/12/11.

Robert