Say you have a B-flat in one bar, tied to another B-flat in the next bar. In Finale, it is possible to (ahem, accidentally) enter the second B-flat as either a B-natural or a B-flat and it will look the same:
Even thought there’s no visual indication that it’s wrong, it won’t play back correctly. And in a score with a number of staves, they are a nightmare to aurally locate for proofreading.
A solution comes from Finale plugin developer Jari Williamsson, whose JW Accidentals plugin provides a semi-automated way to correct these by scanning a selected region, and correctly showing you the actual tied-to note pitches where they are incorrect:
You’ll still have to manually fix the tied-to note, but this makes them very fast and easy to spot.
The JW Accidentals plugin ( mac | windows ) works with versions of Finale 2010 and above, and is available free of charge on Jari Williamsson’s Finaletips.nu website.
~robert
Footnote : If, on the second of two tied notes, the user enters a different note quality (sharp, flat or natural) than the tied-from note, Finale should automatically display the different accidental to alert the user that the pitch entry is incorrect and in disagreement with the tied-from note. Do you agree? Contact MakeMusic Support and request that this long-standing oversight be addressed.