Instrument changes (like fag-cfag that is handled on one staff in Finale) in Dorico- add instrument to player check the part and cut-paste. The whole concept of Dorico is important here. The manual begins with it.
string divisi on extra staves. In Finale the string divisi staves have to be present all the time (one can hide them). In Dorico they are shown as players Violino 1A …B …C. This has to be manually tweaked. Violino 1A needs divisi and unison points defined, material copied from Violino 1 B and C and those players later deleted. How to create divisi and unison in Dorico is well described in the manual.
multi note tremolos are sometimes not carried over IF Dorico’s notation preferences put a tie somewhere. Check. Use “lock duration” feature, if necessary. Search for “lock duration” … in the manual.
forgotten “too many beats in the measure” those push the respective barline back in Dorico and there will be a gap (except the extra duration). Easy to remove, if you care to read the manual.
vocal lines - tuplets and dynamics must be checked visually and tweaked if necessary. Read the manual, use filters and selection shortcuts.
That is my input for now in connection to a full-scale opera conversion. Feel free to add more items that need to be checked manually.
Clefs for instruments such as Bass Clarinet and Baritone Sax that were set up to display in bass clef in concert pitch and treble in transposed, often don’t import with the correct clef. (i.e. Dorico chooses the Bari. Sax. that only uses treble for both.)
Tempo indications that begin with text like “Slowly q = 84” often get separated into a tempo mark of “q = 84” and then simply Shift+X text (not even System Text) for the “Slowly” even if this was correctly assigned to the Tempo Marks expression category in Finale.
Expressions that were assigned to a Score List using “Top Staff” in both the Score and Part often just import as Shift+X text and need to be converted to System Text.
Chord symbols are pretty much a mess other than simple chords. I just checked an older file and B13sus imported as Bsus4sus9(13). Lovely.
Drum set staves, especially those that use slash notation, cues above the staff, etc., are pretty much unusable and are a complete re-input job.
One-bar repeats that are hiding input in Finale import as both the input and the one-bar repeat.
Jazz articulations don’t always import correctly. Certain falls and rips import as trills to the end of the project.
System Locks are not converted to Breaks, so layout is a mess and a complete redo as well.
Page-attached Text is usually not converted correctly.
thank you @FredGUnn for adding to the list.
I forgot the tempo expressions I had them all split to text and tempo marking.
Also:
gradual tempo changes attachment endpoints can be messed up, resulting in for example ritenuto end reaching beyond a new tempo marking and thus sloooow playback from that point onwards.
In addition to the above issues (especially chord symbols and anything involving slashes or drum set notation, for me) I would just suggest for anyone creating Dorico projects of existing large score XML files with doubles, create a NEW Dorico project and have this open next to the open XML file. Copy and paste from the XML on a staff-by-staff or instrument-by-instrument basis into the proper staff in the new Dorico project. As mentioned, Dorico handles doubling and divisi much differently than Finale, and working with the XML import can get pretty cumbersome.
I also keep the PDF version of the score as printed from Finale open so that I can recreate drum set staves, etc., or anything else that is not worth rebuilding from the existing XML staff.
Also: sometimes cross-staff bars that are tweaked visually in Finale.
In Finale I sometimes had to enter some rests in empty bar, some hidden, some shown. All cross staff capable instruments should be checed.