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Chord Suffix Editor dialog box

How to get there

Click the Chord tool , the Chord menu appears.
Choose Chord > Manual Input.
Click any note that doesn’t have a chord symbol attached. In the Chord Definition dialog box, click on Advanced to expand the dialog box.
Click on Select near Suffix to enter the Chord Suffix Selection box, then click Create. (If there are already chord suffixes listed in the Chord Suffix Selection dialog box, click one and then click Edit.)
If a note has a chord symbol attached, click the note to make the chord’s handle appear. Double-click the handle, click on Advanced, then Suffix Select, then click Create.

What it does

In the Chord Suffix Editor dialog box you can create and edit chord suffixes. Finale perceives a chord as a root tone sounding together with notes specific intervals above it; these notes constitute the suffix. Therefore, Finale uses the same suffix whether you play a C major seventh or an F major seventh—the relationship of the suffix notes to the root is the same.

Each letter of the suffix can have its own font, size, and position, making subscript and superscript numbers (for example) possible. You can only edit one character of the suffix at a time, moving among the characters with the Prev and Next buttons. You use the Chord Suffix Editor dialog box both to define the graphic appearance of the suffix and to specify a voicing for a chord’s playback.

You can also use the Chord Suffix Editor dialog box to teach Finale new chords when you’re entering chords using one of Finale’s automatic analysis modes. When you see the Unknown Chord Suffix dialog box, click I’ll Do It, to access the Chord Definition dialog box; then create the chord symbol (and its suffix, if necessary) in the Chord Definition dialog box (see Chord Definition dialog box). The next time you play the chord (in any octave or voicing), Finale will know what chord symbol to display. (This custom teaching feature is "root-specific," however; if you only teach Finale to recognize a C major sixth chord in the key of C, it will only recognize major sixth chords built on C. But it will recognize, for example, a Gmaj6 in the key of G and an Amaj6 in the key of A.)

Symbol. This text box displays the currently selected character of the chord suffix. If you’re creating a new suffix, the text box is initially empty; type the first letter of the new suffix here, and click Next or Update to make it appear in the display. The character in the Symbol box is always displayed in the System font, even if you’ve specified a different font for the character. (The character appears with the correct font in the display area.)

If you want to choose the character from a palette, select the font with the Set Font button. Then click the Symbol button; Finale displays a selection box containing every symbol in the font. Double-click the one you want; its corresponding System font character appears in the Symbol text box.

You can only type one letter at a time into the Symbol text box unless you’ve told Finale that you’re entering a number (by selecting Number), in which case you can enter a multi-digit number.

Number. Select this option if the symbol you’re adding to a chord suffix is a number, in which case the Symbol text box will allow you to type numbers with several digits. In other words, if you select Number, you can enter 13 in the Symbol box; if you didn’t select Number, you’d have to enter the 1 and the 3 as separate symbols.
Prefix with: Flat • Sharp • Plus • Minus. If the Prefix With check box is selected, the four prefix options become available (flat, sharp, plus, and minus). You’ll generally use these prefixes in conjunction with a number (–9, for example), but they’ll work on an alphabetic character too. You can add a separate prefix to each character or number in the chord suffix. (The type style for the flat and sharp in these prefixes can be changed in Document Options-Fonts by Modifying the Alteration in the Chord drop-down menu.)
H: • V:. The H: and V: boxes contain coordinates that determine the distance of the currently selected character from the chord suffix’s handle (where the crosshairs intersect, at the suffix’s lower-left corner). The chord suffix handle is considered the zero point. The H: number sets horizontal distance (a positive number moves the character to the right, negative to the left) and the V: number sets the vertical distance (a positive number moves the character upward, negative downward).

If you drag the currently selected character’s handle in any direction, the H: and V: numbers will change as you move it. If you’re trying to align characters with each other, however, you may find that typing values in the H: and V: boxes gives you greater precision. Enter a new value in the H: or V: box, then click Update to see the effect of the new numbers on the display. (Note that each time you add a new character, Finale automatically adds enough horizontal space to make room for the new character.)

Prev • Next. Use the Prev and Next buttons to move through the various characters that constitute the chord suffix (because you can only edit one letter or number at a time). If you’ve already selected the last character in the suffix (and it’s displayed in the Symbol text box), then click Next to open a slot for an additional character; Finale will automatically place the new character’s handle far enough to the right that it doesn’t overlap the previous character.
Set Play. Click this button to enter the Suffix Keynumber Offsets dialog box, where you can define a particular voicing you want Finale to use when it plays back a particular chord symbol. See Suffix Keynumber Offsets dialog box.
Set Font. Click this button to enter the Font selection box, where you can specify the type characteristics of the currently selected character. (If you select Fixed Size, for any character in a chord suffix, the entire suffix, including prefixes, will be treated as fixed size.) Use this button if you’re combining several fonts within a single suffix—for example, if the suffix contains a half-diminished symbol (ø), you can use the proper symbol from the Maestro music font. (The current character is displayed in the Symbol text box, although it always appears there in the System font, no matter what font you’ve selected using the Set Font button. Click the Update button to see the effects of your font changes in the display area.)

Incidentally, don’t use this button to change all suffixes to a new font, one character at a time. Instead, use the Change Chord Suffix Fonts command in the Chord menu. And if you want to change the font for the letter name (root) of all your chord symbols (instead of the suffixes), use the Symbol button in Document Options-Fonts (from the Document menu, choose Document Options and select Fonts.) (There’s a selection for Chords labeled Accidentals in the same box, with which you can set the font for the accidentals in the roots of your chord symbols—E, for example—as well as the flat and sharp prefixes within the chord suffixes.)

Show Handles. Finale normally displays a small square handle at the lower-left corner of the currently selected character, which you can drag to reposition the character. Deselect Show Handles if you want these handles to be invisible (if they’re obscuring some small character, for example). You can still drag the character by its handle, but the handle itself will be invisible.
Update. The Update check box has two functions. First, you need to click it in order to see the effects of any changes you make (in the H, V, or Symbol text boxes, or using the Set Font or prefix buttons) on the display of the suffix.

Second, when the Update check box is selected, you’ll see the character at all times while you’re dragging it; when Update isn’t selected, you’ll only see the character in its new position when you finish dragging.

OK • Cancel. Click OK to confirm the settings you’ve made in this dialog box and return to the Chord Definition (or Chord Selection) box. If you’ve created a new suffix, it’s now stored in the Chord Suffix Selection box. Click Cancel to tell Finale to ignore any changes you made in the Chord Suffix Editor. You return to the previous dialog box.