I have a piece underway. I’m presently in a 4/4 section. I need to change one of the measures to 5/4 without affecting all the measures that follow. I can’t find how to do this via the manual nor the videos. So far, this is where Finale is much better. You highlight the measure or measures to change and it takes care of it.
In that 5/4 measure, I want to write a whole note tied to a quarter note. Even using the forced value (or whatever it’s called) I get two half notes. WTF. Again, Finale can input what I want with ease.
You can use Insert Mode 4th scope (Global adjustment of current bar). It’s very handy and doesn’t even require to enter a time signature!
And with Force Duration, you should be able to enter a whole tied to a quarter:
Note that to create the 5/4 bar I add a quarter note at the end, but I could also have selected one of the quarter notes and pressed 7 to turn it into a half note. It would also have created the 5/4 (and restored the 4/4 next bar):
Also: don’t forget to switch off Insert Mode once the 5/4 bar is created!
Do you mean the benefit of thinking in terms of note durations?
Three examples:
Shifting selected music horizontally across barlines by the rhythmic grid value with ALT/OPTION ← / → . This is not possible at all in Finale.
Shortening and enlarging notes across barlines with SHIFT-ALT/OPTION ← / → This is also not possible in Finale.
Rather than entering a quarter note, a tie, and an 8th note across a bar you can enter a dotted quarter note, Dorico manages the ties. This is partially possible in Finale.
If you mean the suggested way by @charles_piano the locations in the manual are
It’s important to note that Finale thinks in bars; Dorico thinks in beats, which are divided up into bars. So changing a time sig in Finale changes the number of beats in those bars, but changing a time sig in Dorico only changes the way that existing beats are divided up (unless you take other steps to also add beats).
