Edit /Measurement Units submenu
In a number of Finale dialog boxes, you’re asked to specify a measurement: the margins of each page, for example, or the thickness of eighth-note beams. Using this submenu, you can select the measurement unit you want Finale to understand—and display—in all of its dialog boxes.
- EVPUs. Choose this command to display the measurements in EVPUsEVPUs, or ENIGMA Virtual Page Units, are Finale's flexible units of measurement used to calculate the size and spacing of your music, defined as 288 EVPUs per inch or 24 EVPUs per space. You can display the measurements in more common units such as inches, centimeters, points or spaces., of which there are 288 per inch.
- Inches. Choose this command to display the measurements in inches.
- Centimeters. Choose this command to display the measurements in centimeters.
- Points. Choose this command to display the measurements in points. Points are typographical measurements of which there are 72 points per inch, and 12 points in a pica.
- Picas. Choose this command to display the measurements in picas. Picas are typographical measurements of which there are 6 picas per inch.
- Spaces. Choose this command to display the measurements in spaces. In engraving, one space is defined as the distance between staff lines (1/2 space equals one diatonic step, which is one line or space in a staff); however, in Finale one space is equal to 1/12 of an inch, or 24 EVPUs (which is Finale's default distance between staff lines).
Noteman says: When you’re overriding the global setting in this way, you even have a unit option not available in the Units of Measurement dialog box (millimeters).
You can override your global choice on a case-by-case basis, however. Just include the units, or their abbreviation, when you type any measurement number into Finale. For example, suppose you’ve selected Inches as your global unit of measurement. When you’re telling Finale how thick you’d like your slurs to be, however, inches may be slightly unwieldy for such a fine adjustment. Therefore, you might type “2 pt.” Finale automatically converts what you’ve entered into inches.
You don’t have to type out the word “points,” of course. Here are the abbreviations you can enter into any measurement-oriented dialog box:
To specify these units | Type one of these |
EVPUs | EVPUs, evpus, e |
inches | inches, inch, in, i, ” |
centimeters | centimeters, cm, c |
millimeters | millimeters, mm, m |
picas | picas, p |
points | points, pts, pt |
spaces | spaces, sp, s |
See also: