NOTATIO

I don't think your last point is right. I made a file with a single staff at 50% STAFF reduction and 100% page and system reduction, set spacing to q = 6 and spaced the bar of quarter notes. In scroll view they showed 6 spaces, in page view they showed 12 spaces. If I respace in page view it makes n...

OK, I understand your logic, but if I remove the full sized staff so that only the staff with a 50% staff reduction remains, spacing still works according to the page/system reduction, not the staff reduction. While this has a logic to it, it is worth remembering. Music spacing is not scaled accordi...

If only it were so simple! For example make a system with 2 staves, set one staff at 100% and one at 50 % Enter 4 quarter notes on the upper staff so as not to use accidentals or leger lines. Copy the music to the lower staff Set music spacing to a relatively large value, say q = 6 spaces Select the...

John: Hairpin openings are variable. Finale's default of 1.5 spaces is ugly. Many people decrease this to about 1.3 spaces, which I use for Music Sales. Boosey have a whole page on hairpins in their style sheet but I cannot see a specification. The examples in the style sheet appear to be slightly m...

I don't understand Wess's explanation of the technical aspects of laser printing and its relationship to engraving. Perhaps others will take that on.. basically printers scan in lines across the page. If you set you line thickness in Finale to marginally less than the thickness of the printed line,...

Stem = staff line *125%
Bar line = staff line * 150%

leger line = stem line
hairpin = bar line

Sorry guys, I got this the wrong way around:

Leger line = bar line
hairpin = stem line

I have never been thinking so deeply about the staff lines, and now I recognise how little I can, thank you @wess @peter and @john. This just confirms that notation is not composing, and that there should be just engravers, as there are composers. Indeed, music origination is an art in itself. This...

I normally use spaces for my settings. 1, 1.25 and 1.5 would be my normal settings these days

Peter

Hi John, indeed, I did mean cm in the 2012 post, sorry about that

I use a different calculation. because I and my clients use laser print at 1200dpi, the image is not so sensitive to round up/down pluses as with inkjet. I set my staff lines to 0.1 spaces. When the staff is less than 4 mm I increase that to 0.125