Finale program

In the Tech. trend class, we covered several programs for creating web page. Finale was the one of them. It was quite challenge for me as a first time user.
It took a lot of time to get used to be with it but still I think I barely know about it. I never use any scorewriter program such as Finale, Sibelius, and Nightingale.
So I really don’t know which one is more convenience for me and I so afraid to start use another program I never use before. So probably I’ll stay on Finale for a while.

Finale is the flagship program of a series of proprietary scorewriters created by MakeMusic for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Finale is regarded by some as the industry-standard notation software, though there is some debate as to whether there is a true industry-standard.[1] Both Finale and its main competitor Sibelius are widely used in professional engraving and publishing, educational institutions, and for film, TV and theater music preparation, among other uses.
MakeMusic also offers several less expensive versions of Finale, with subsets of the main program's features. These include Finale NotePad, Printmusic, and Allegro. Two more such versions, Finale Guitar and Finale Songwriter, have feature sets tailored to different musicians' needs. Another "lite" program, Finale NotePad Plus, was previously made but is now discontinued.

Finale's strength is its flexibility. Almost every feature on the page can be globally or individually adjusted, manipulated, resized, replaced or altered in some way. By adapting existing notation symbols, or by creating new elements, it is ideal for contemporary and modern music that requires extensions to standard music notation.
Linked parts create orchestral parts that remain linked to the master score, so that changes to the master score will be instantly reflected in the parts.
Finale can notate anything from a textbook chorale to a cut-out score including new symbols invented by the composer. It is also capable of working with guitar tablature and includes a jazz font similar to that used in the Real Book. Virtually all score elements can be positioned or adjusted, either by dragging (with the appropriate tool selected) or by using dialog boxes with measurements in inches, centimeters or picas.
Music can be entered in a variety of ways: using the computer keyboard alone in realtime or via a command line window; using user-determined combinations of mouse clicks, computer keyboard, and MIDI piano keyboard; or by MIDI keyboard alone. Standard midi files may be also be input. It also includes a function for optically recognising printed music from a scan, similar to OCRring text. From Finale 2001 onward, the program included Mic Notator, a module able to notate pitches played on an acoustic instrument via a microphone connected to the computer.
Finale can import and export MIDI files, and it can playback music using a large range of audio samples, notably from the Garritan library. As of Finale 2009, it can use VST and AU plug-ins. 'Human playback' creates a less mechanical feel, by incorporating playing styles into the playback, including ornaments, ritardandos and accelerandos. Finale can export audio files as .aif, .wav or .mp3.

Some users have claimed that Finale "has a steep learning curve" and requires "a significant investment in ... time to learn the program."[8] This has driven some musicians to choose the software Sibelius instead, as it is purportedly learned more easily. Some Finale users disagree entirely; others claim that a steeper curve is necessary to incorporate the high level of manual adjustment of a score that Finale is known and lauded for.
The following are specific problems that some users run into when using Finale, the first few being more common than the later ones:
For pieces starting with a pick-up measure, the setup wizard enables one to put in the correct note values but it does not put in the correct rest values. If the arranger fails to notice and correct this in each part, it leads to confusion in rehearsal when the players who don't play in the pick-up measure see a whole rest instead of the correct value rest in their part.
Users sharing files between different versions of Finale will notice that it is not fully backwards-compatible. Newer versions of Finale can open older files, but a newer file cannot be converted to an older version. Finale 2003 added a feature to import and export MusicXML files, solving the problem of backwards-compatibility to a certain extent.
Finale does not yet support Unicode when entering lyrics. As of Finale 2007, only ASCII-based characters are supported. Finale also supports 2-byte (Huge) fonts.
Finale requires additional midi or similar plugins in order to effectively score marching percussion for playback.