The PSALM Liturgical Music Resource

Typesetting Manual

Entry of music and lyrics:

1. Set proper key signature
2. Based on your determination in (IIB), set time signature for the entire piece (adjustments will be made later, as needed)
3. Proceed to enter one voice into Layer 1 of the (top) staff
4. If you have "Jump to next measure" feature turned on, Finale will automatically go to the next measure when the time signature is "filled"; however, if you come to an end of a measure in the MS and there are still "unfilled" beats remaining in the measure, you must manually jump to the next measure. If you exceed the number of beats, Finale will complain that there are too many beats in the measure. Just click OK (Leave measure as is). Then you must go back and adjust the time signature for the appropriate number of beats. A highly recommended alternative to manually adjusting the time signatures is to go use the free JW Time Sig 1.0 plug-in (available at http://www.jwmusic.nu/freeplugins/), which will retroactively put in the correct time signature to match the number of beats in the measure.
5. Once music is entered and proofed, go to lyrics tool and select "Click assign"; the text should appear in a separate window. Proceed to click-assign the text to the appropriate notes. NOTE: If setting is extremely syllabic, you can use the "Option-click-assign" feature and stream in the entire text with a single click, then use "Shift Lyrics to End of Lyric" option to make final adjustments. (Be careful using this feature; if you get syllables on top of syllables, it is best to delete them in that region and re-click them in.)
6. The template already has the "Medium" Allotment Library loaded in; once lyrics are all assigned, use Mass Mover tool to Select All, and apply "Note spacing" by holding down the "4" key (Mac) and double-clicking anywhere on the highlighted staff. (This is known as Meta-tool "4".) The music will re-space itself with no collisions of lyrics. For good measure "Recalculate" or "Update Layout." If Meta-tools are not available on your computer, go to Mass mover menu and select "Apply note spacing."
7. If you have been working with the time signatures visible, now is the time to turn time signatures off using staff attribute tool
8. Adjust bar-lines as needed -- single, double, invisible, etc. If a single musical phrase spans two systems, the bar-line at the end of the system should be made invisible
9. It is a good idea to audio-proof the music at this point, using Finale's playback feature (set pulse to 80-120, as appropriate)