Finale: Shape Designer

Finale’s Shape Designer is a built-in vector drawing program that can be used to address all sorts of little notational problems. It crops up in all sorts of places:

Expression Tool – Select “Shape” from the bottom of the Expression Designer.

Articulation Tool – Select “Shape” for the main and/or flipped symbols

Custom Arrowheads – This is available when designing a Smart Line, or when adding a line from within the Shape Designer itself (see below).

Executable Shapes – This can be found under the Playback tab of the Expression Designer.

Clef Designer – Accessed through Document Options. Choose “Shape” instead of Character:

Multimeasure Rests – Accessed through Document Options. The multimeasure “H” shape is actually a set of three lines grouped together: By ungrouping these you can adjust the thickness or appearance of your multimeasure rests.

Custom Stem Tool   – Double click a note’s editing handle to bring up the shape selection box.

Here is a brief overview of some of the things the Shape Designer can do, along with a few examples of ways I’ve used it recently.

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