Font Annotation allows you to fine-tune
the height and width of each font character, allowing Finale to better
handle the selection area for font characters and collision avoidance
in Engraver slurs. We’ve provided annotation files for each of the fonts
provided by MakeMusic. If you use an alternative music font, you should
create your own font annotation file for a smoother integration with Finale.
To annotate a font
- Open any file.
- From the Finale 2009 Menu, choose
Preferences, and then Program Options,
and select Edit. Click the Font Annotation button. The Font Annotation
dialog box appears.
- Click New. Select the desired font and click
OK. You return to the Font Annotation dialog box with a character
displayed in the selected font.
- Under Character, click Select. Scroll up and
find the first non-empty character in the font. Double-click on it.
You return to the Font Annotation dialog box with the selected character
in the selected font.
- Drag each side of the red bounding rectangle
until the lines frame the character as closely as possible. Use
the View text box to increase or decrease the size of the character. Use
the Hand Grabber Tool (command-option-click and drag in the character
window) to move your view of the character. No part of the character should
appear outside the bounding rectangle.
- Click Save. The Save As dialog box appears.
- Save the file in the Font Annotation folder
in your Finale folder. Finale will automatically load all font
annotation (FAN files found in the Font Annotation folder when you start
Finale.
- Select the next character in the font.
Use the arrow buttons or click Select under Character and double-click
on the next character.
- Repeat until all characters in the font are
annotated.
- Click Save, then OK twice. You return
to the document. In order to see the effects of the changes you’ve just
made, you would need to quit and restart Finale.
