This is an honest question: Are there any long-term Finale users out there who have found an alternative to Dorico that is less frustrating and less tedious?
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Do you really expect to get meaningful responses to your question on the Dorico forum? If this issue is really of interest you should consider other music-related forums that aren’t focussed on a particular notation program.
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Most of us here (many from Finale) have not found Dorico particularly tedious or frustrating– not to say we haven’t had things to figure out as we had to do in Finale as beginners as well.
If you want to figure out how to be less frustrated, pose your questions here and I’m sure many can help you combat any tedium you experience.
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Welcome to the forum. @lafin is right on both counts. Most of us here, myself included, have had excellent success with Dorico. I used Finale for nearly twenty years before I switched to Dorico in 2018. It has transformed my professional work.
And secondly: yes, please post something specific, and we can help.
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There has been an awful lot written about the journey from Finale to Dorico in the past 18 months or so. Inevitably, it will require some amount of effort in learning new methods and behaviours (both of the app and the user).
There are any number of tutorials, videos, and other helps to aid people in the transition.
But, in answer to the question, you are likely to find difficulties and tedium moving to any other application.
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You could simply stay with Finale as a number are already. There are various Finale forums continuing to support their users, for example:
https://www.finaleforum.com/index.php?
You could ask your questions there. This forum is probably not the best for your questions to be answered fairly, mainly because many Finale users here (as you have read already) have made the switch, taken the time to learn and tempered their frustration enough to make progress over time until they are satisfied it was the right choice for their needs, whatever they might be, and continued on with it.
If you are concerned about hardware/OS eventually not being available in the future, you could decide what you want to do a little later. By then there might be other suitable alternatives, the current options (for example Sibelius, Musescore) would have matured more. There might be AI-based programs at that point, perhaps incorporating some of the Finale language/processes you are already familiar with.
However as many of us have had to do, we decided to take the time to learn Dorico, enough to decide to stay with it, presumably others have given up and are not regularly here at the forum.
If you are wanting to accomplish completing specific pieces instantly as you did with Finale, then this would not work, whether Dorico or not. You have to decide whether you want to really learn the software or not. You will find many posts referring to the various videos and tutorials and to use this forum for questions. You will be among friends here if you decide to ask specific questions because many here are very helpful and come from Finale so you can ask using the terminology you know, and have sympathetic responses/answers to help.
The Dorico First steps guide is excellent at helping to make a start if you are not already familiar with it and want to make a start.
I am learning new software at the moment (not music) so have a notebook (paper!) and pencil beside me which is a great way to “remember” new things and find it is an extension of my memory processes. I am making slow progress, but there is no suitable forum like this one is for Dorico which is a pity.
I had to do a free job for someone using this type of software, and decided to quickly use the old software I was familiar with (less frustration.) It was delivered yesterday. Today, I decided to try to do the same/similar using the new software I am learning. I assume it will be 5 or 10 times longer to do this, but it is without the stress and more about the learning and benefits once I have more of it mastered.
Best wishes with your music 
for 2026 anyway.
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It takes a while to understand how Dorico “thinks“. John Barron’s “Discover Dorico“ videos are excellent for this. Apparently it “thinks“ very differently to Sibelius, Finale and Musescore. Once you start thinking like Dorico, you should find the frustration decreases significantly, and it is a very productive and enjoyable environment. I hope it goes well for you.
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Thank you for the comments and encouragement. I still use Finale on my old laptop to edit my previous piano arrangement projects. But since getting a new laptop several months ago and learning I could no longer transfer the Finale software, I have been determined to learn Dorico, spending a lot of time watching tutorials, reading this forum, and just generally googling how-to questions when they come up.
That being said, I continue to be frustrated (I’m sure by my own errors) when using Dorico.
My biggest current frustration with Dorico is notes that move to places where I don’t want them.
When I shorten the duration of a note or a series of notes (e.g. changing an arpeggio from 1/16th notes to 1/32nd notes), notes from subsequent measures pull to the left across bar lines to fill in the space left by the duration change. But the notes from other voices or the opposite staff don’t move. And if I’ve attached lyrics, I haven’t been able to figure out the pattern to whether they move or stay behind. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. I believe I’m using the recommended procedures, but this keeps happening to me, and clean-up in these cases is tedious. I’m hoping there is a solid rule I can follow to prevent this. I know there is a key command (shift+alt+left arrow) that should prevent this. But I can’t always make that key combination work, so I use the duration palette. Is there a way to prevent this note movement if I’m choosing a note duration from the palette?
Speaking of lyrics, Dorico doesn’t allow a lyric to be attached to a rest. But if I have the melody in the bass clef, I may sometimes have a rest in the treble clef that I want a lyric attached to. I can attach a lyric to a bass-clef note, but it appears below the staves instead of between them. The only way I’ve figured out how to attach a lyric to a rest and have it appear where I want it, is to temporarily add a note in place of the rest, add the lyric, then replace the note with the proper rest. Is there a quicker workaround to this, such as a way to specifying that bass clef lyrics move to the space between the staves?
I also find it tedious and frustrating when I enter a note, specifying in the duration palette that I want it to be a quarter note (for example), but instead of a quarter note, it becomes two eighth notes tied together. I then have to untie the two notes, delete one of them, and select the Force Duration tool to make it a quarter note. It just seems like a lot of steps are required when this happens – especially since I’ve already specified that I wanted it to be a quarter note. Is there a way to prevent this from happening? Do I always need to select the Force Duration tool when entering notes?
I am learning, but I’m frustrated because I continue to encounter unexpected results that I would like to prevent.
Thank you in advance to this group as I know you will offer great insight.
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Sounds like you are in Insert Mode (voice scope).
Not sure about the lyrics …
but instead of a quarter note, it becomes two eighth notes tied together.
This has to do with note groupings.
There are a ton of options available to tailor to your style.
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You should be able to install Finale on your new computer, if you’d rather continue with Finale; the authorization servers are still active AFAIK. You may need to first open Finale on your old laptop and deactivate it there.
Take a look at what the manual says about Insert mode scopes. The default scope is voice scope – only the current voice is affected.
You can also limit the effect of using Insert mode with an Insert mode stop position.
This will depend on the meter, where in the bar you’re entering the note, and your settings in Notation Options > Note Grouping. When you input something with the length of a quarter note, Dorico will notate that length of sound according to those rules. For example, if you’re in 6/8 and enter a quarter note on the third eighth note, Dorico will by default notate it as two tied eighths. In most cases, you can adjust Notation Options to get what you want, or use some time signature tricks. Force Duration is there for outliers, but in general it shouldn’t be used much.
[ninja’d by @derAbgang !]
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I have found that, in all walks of life, if I read a post or a tweet that starts “This is an honest question,” it’s almost a guarantee that, honest or not, the question that follows will be a LOADED question, one that assumes the absolute truth of a perspective that is, after all, just an opinion. Framing your post as “Have you found any programs that are less tedious” means you are assuming we all feel the same way. It is impossible to exaggerate the extent to which I DON’T feel that way. For me, Dorico is wildly more efficient, powerful and fun to use than Finale. FWIW I’m much more likely to offer help to people who simply focus on specific things that are bothering them and/or that they are trying to learn. My two cents. — Peter
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Honestly, transitioning from Finale to Dorico was a total nightmare for me. I couldn’t just stumble through it using my intuition from 2 decades of Finale habits. I had to take the time to really learn new workflows from the ground up. I asked a lot of questions in this forum and people were often helpful although sometimes snarky. It’s not for the faint of heart. I recommend learning Dorico when you are not working on a deadline, when you have time to devote to it with a clear head, and when you can find mental space for patience. I wholeheartedly sympathize with your frustration. I had a really hard time making this transition.
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This does not sound like the natural tone in here. Although we’ve been experiencing a very heavy load (with a lot of resentment and pain from the MakeMusic move we’re not responsible for) in the last 18 months, which could explain some exasperation. Things should go back to normal these days 
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Anyone coming from a different notation program will struggle with Dorico. How much and for how long will depend almost entirely on how frustrated you are with Dorico not doing what you expect it to do.
I came from Sibelius and struggled for about 6 months. Eventually I just gave in and reckoned I should try doing things their way. That was 10 years ago. Now, I use it almost every day and get so much pleasure from it. And though I’ve used it for 10 years I’m still finding out things it can do.
Hope you get there, Mehepting.
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I’m not sure why anyone would assume that, as I expect you now see. I still recall how difficult the original Finale package was to learn, even coming from MOTU’s Professional Composer. That’s why I decided to start learning Dorico the moment it came out, long before it could do everything I needed.
And that, I imagine, is a truth most professionals would agree with. Anything else is taking a big risk.
I hope you are more comfortable with Dorico now and feel it is worth the effort–and sometimes frustration–spent on it.
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Nope, but as a Finale user since 1994, I’ve had little trouble learning Dorico, turning out compositions for large ensemble much faster than before. I suggest doing what I did: stop trying to make Dorico fit into your Finale muscle memory and embrace the Dorico way. You’ll be a lot happier.
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You can, in fact, attach a lyric anywhere. Select the rest, start note input with the cursor, and press Shift-L.
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To be fair, you’ve had a recent influx of former Finale users who were frustrated and upset before switching to Dorico, and we could be pretty snarky in our Finale forum after decades of answering the same questions every day. You have imported a lot of snark with the new users. I’ve gotten better, but I still catch myself doing it sometimes.
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Thank you so much. Yes. This works. I had previously searched for an answer to this question in this forum. The answer someone was given to that same question was that Dorico does not allow attaching a lyric to a rest; entering a temporary note then deleting it after the lyric was entered was the solution offered at that time. Your response is so helpful.
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Thank you. I am hopeful.
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