Installation instructions and terms of use are available on the download page.

System Requirements

PC or Mac with Finale 98 or Finale 2000/2001/2002/2003 installed.

Description

JW Score System Divider will insert divider symbols between different staff systems on the same page in a full score. It should not be used for extracted parts. The divider symbols are created as page text blocks. The symbol used is character 187 in the EngraverFontSet font (included in Finale 98).

Important note 1: Make sure that your score is fully updated before running this plug-in. Otherwise, you may experience strange placements of the divider symbols.

Important note 2: The font EngraverFontSet must be correctly installed on your system. If not, you will get an incorrect displayed/printed divider symbol in your score.

Options

Font size: The font size to be used for the divider symbols. Remember that the divider symbol is quite big, so you will typically want a much smaller font size than the font size used for the music, typically in the 50-75% range.

Calculate V-positions using...:
last/first staff lines - Calculate the vertical position by finding the absolute last staff line (of the last instrument) on the upper staff system and the absolute first staff line (of the first instrument) on the lower staff system.
staff system boundaries - Calculate the vertical position based on the bottom border of the upper staff system and the top border of the lower staff system.

Process range: Select on which pages you want to insert the divider symbols.

Adjustment: Enter manual horizontal and vertical adjustments here, if needed.

Auto-adjust V: When this option is checked, the values in the vertical adjustment field will be automatically filled-in, based on the font size. It's highly recommended to have this option turned on. The vertical position has to be adjusted, since the text blocks are top-aligned. At first this may seem like a strange decision, but having the text blocks vertically center-aligned would cause big changes of vertical placement when adjusting the vertical page margins or page sizes. With this method, the text blocks will "follow" the systems a bit better. If you have to do some additional vertical adjustments, it's recommended to turn off this option after you have selected the font size.

Right margin origin: Use this option if you want to place the divider symbols on the right side on the paper on some pages. The divider symbols on these pages will be right-aligned and (in version 1.03 and later) have the negative horizontal adjustment value (if used).

Remove: Push this button if you want to remove all divider symbols with the selected font size within the selected range.

Tips

The warning message 'Apply this plug-in ONLY on your FINAL LAYOUT. Continue?' before the option dialog can be removed by checking Don't show this message in the future. If you want to redisplay the warning message, hold down Ctrl+Shift when selecting the JW Score System Divider plug-in from the menu.

If you for some reason want to remove the dividers directly after running the plug-in, use Undo from the Edit menu. It's much faster and will automatically remove all dividers from the last run.

Don't edit the contents of the divider text block manually. If you do, the Remove function will probably not work.

Revision History

Version 1.03b: Error message when part is marked with Special Part Extraction
Version 1.03c: Checks which of the 2 EngraverFontSet font name exists on Mac.
Version 1.03d: Updates layout automatically before processing.
Version 1.07: Support for absolute staff heights (in systems) in Finale 2002 and later

Technical

PC:

Filename:
jwdivider.fxt [on Finale 98]
jwdivider2000.fxt [on Finale 2000-]

Entry in registry: Software\JWPlugins\JWDivider (in HKEY_CURRENT_USER)

Mac:

Filename:
JW Score System Divider [on Finale 98]
JW Score System Divider 2k [on Finale 2000]

User Preferences resource: 'JWDV' in JW Plug-ins (located in the Program Settings folder)