NOTATIO

John Ruggero wrote:Thank you, Knut and RMK. I'm not accustomed to using fonts that are not compatible with Finale, so I had a little catching up to do.

I did install both Bravura and Norfolk and can access them now. (But I had no luck loading any of the three .lib files that come with Norfolk into a file.)

Is it correct that one must set up each character for these fonts in the Document Options?

I haven't downloaded Norfolk, so I don't know about the library files.
To your second question: not necessarily. Finale and Sibelius compatible fonts are essentially encoded differently, but native Sibelius fonts include a duplicate set of code points compatible with Finale. This means that, at least with regard to the more basic symbols, Sibelius' fonts will be compatible with Finale out of the box. My guess is that Norfolk is encoded in the same way.

For less common characters, however, especially those outside the basic set, you will need to set the symbols up manually in Document Options or the appropriate tool.

Thanks, Knut. Sorry about this, but it is unfamiliar territory for me, and I haven't found much help online.

When I open a Finale default document with Bravura as my default font, I see an ampersand and a strange time signature sitting high on the staves. The whole measure rests have been replaced by tiny squares. Simple Entry commands produce strange symbols. Nothing is as it should be. For this reason, I assumed that I would have to set up every symbol in Bravura.

When I do the same thing in Norfolk, I get a nice G clef and time signature. But the whole measure rests have still been replaced by tiny squares, and Simple Entry commands still produce strange symbols. Again, I seems that must set up most of the symbols.

So I am confused when you say that the basic symbols should be compatible out of the box. Is there is some way to avoid setting up many of these symbols, or did I set things up incorrectly?

John Ruggero wrote:When I open a Finale default document with Bravura as my default font, I see an ampersand and a strange time signature sitting high on the staves. The whole measure rests have been replaced by tiny squares. Simple Entry commands produce strange symbols. Nothing is as it should be. For this reason, I assumed that I would have to set up every symbol in Bravura.

Yes, Bravura's encoding is not Finale compatible, so it won't work as the default music font.

John Ruggero wrote:When I do the same thing in Norfolk, I get a nice G clef and time signature. But the whole measure rests have still been replaced by tiny squares, and Simple Entry commands still produce strange symbols. Again, I seems that must set up most of the symbols.

So I am confused when you say that the basic symbols should be compatible out of the box. Is there is some way to avoid setting up many of these symbols, or did I set things up incorrectly?

Sorry, should have said 'mostly compatible'. Firstly, there may be a few symbols encoded differently within the Basic Latin encoding that Finale uses. Secondly, since it is third party, there is no guarantee that Norfolk is set up 100% correctly according to Sibelius' own fonts. Either way, you will need to reassign the symbols that don't match in Document Options.

John Ruggero wrote: When I open a Finale default document with Bravura as my default font, I see an ampersand and a strange time signature sitting high on the staves. The whole measure rests have been replaced by tiny squares. Simple Entry commands produce strange symbols. Nothing is as it should be. For this reason, I assumed that I would have to set up every symbol in Bravura.

You can check Fravura:
http://www.musegraph.com/fravura.html

I have Fravura, but it doesn't have the more unusual glyphs that I was interested in. But it is good for comparing the more common characters to other fonts.

Now that I understand how easy it is to access the non-compatible fonts, I will just take what I need, defined as articulations. I find that I cannot access them as text expressions, however.