Accidentals

In some obscure situations involving tied notes in multiple voices, or notes tied to nothing, an accidental may be wrongly converted

Articulations

The following Finale articulations are omitted (some of these are not normally notated as articulations anyway): trill extension, trill, broken chord, double slash, grace note, diamond, brackets, tenuto + accent (as a single articulation)

Articulations input using the Finale Expression tool are not imported

Articulations that convert to standard Sibelius articulations (accents, tenuto, staccato, etc.) are placed at Sibelius's default position

Bar numbers

You can choose whether to convert them to Sibelius native bar numbers or to Sibelius text in the Options dialog when you open a file; converting to text allows more Finale options to work correctly, but may make the score harder to edit

Barlines

Manual horizontal barline adjustments with the Finale Measure Tool are ignored

Graphic barlines are omitted

Thick barlines import as double barlines

Ticks import as regular barlines

Beams

Secondary beam breaks are converted to continuous secondary beams

Brackets and braces

Second individual placements of brackets are not converted (this is set globally in the Sibelius House Style > Engraving Rules dialog)

Grace notes

Grace note beaming may not always convert accurately

Guitar frames

Guitar frames faked using guitar font characters typed into text (e.g. using the Seville font) are imported correctly.

'Native' Finale guitar frames are converted with the following limitations: if the voicing of chord suffixes is changed in Finale so that they display a different guitar frame, Sibelius will always convert the default appearance of the standard chord suffixes; new chord suffixes added by the user are not converted; and there may be some quirks due to Finale's limited number of supported frames, e.g. the frame displayed in Finale for the chord D (no 3rd) includes a 3rd, despite its name. Sibelius retains the original appearance of the guitar frame, i.e. in this case it displays a guitar frame with a 3rd, just as Finale does.

Guitar tab

Finale stem adjustment options in tab do not convert

Finale TAB clef options are not supported

Key signatures

Independent key signatures on different staves import as default key signatures

Non-standard key signatures (e.g. 3 sharps + 2 flats) are omitted. Finale scores that use these key signatures will import with incorrect enharmonic spellings

Finale key signatures hidden on a per-bar basis are not converted

Layout and spacing

Margins are adjusted to avoid spilling off the page

Finale's horizontal note spacing is ignored; Sibelius's default spacing rules (which are often better) are used instead

Finale systems that overlap vertically will import as two separate systems with 0 separation

Lines

Lines designed using the Finale Shape Designer are not imported

The positioning of trill extensions is not always accurately imported

Lines that begin and end on different staves are omitted

Flipped stem directions can cause slurs to be incorrectly positioned

Finale slur thickness option is ignored

Values specified by the Finale function Avoid Staff Line by at Least X amount are ignored

Slurs created as Finale Shape Expressions are not imported

Slurs attached to grace notes may have inaccurate positions

Custom designed repeats do not convert

Lyrics

Finale lyric alignment (left, right, center) imports as Sibelius default alignment

Lyrics are respaced according to Sibelius's rules

Formatting of Lyrics may not be automatically updated if you edit the Lyrics text style - so choose Edit > Filter > Lyrics and then use Layout > Reset Design after changing the text style

Notes and ties

You can set the notehead size (as a percentage of Sibelius's normal size) in the Options dialog when you open a file

Default Finale stem directions import as Sibelius default stem directions, so in some cases they may point in the other direction

Cross-staff notes are implemented using Sibelius's rules, so the following are left on the original staff: notes in a chord individually crossed to another staff, and notes crossed to a staff in another instrument or in a non-adjacent staff

Part extraction

Some part extraction options are not imported (e.g. markings that are extracted into some parts and not others)

Playback

MIDI playback settings are imported from layer 1 of Finale staves. Settings in other layers are ignored

Rehearsal marks

Rehearsal marks convert as text in the Rehearsal Marks text style. This means they will not automatically renumber/reletter if subsequently edited

Rests

The vertical position of rests is converted to Sibelius's default position

Symbols

Staff Expression tool symbols are omitted

Text

Finale text items with embedded current date and time are imported with the date and time of conversion

Certain text characters (e.g. accented letters) will import more accurately if the Finale file is imported on the same platform (Mac or Windows) as it was originally created on (because the Finale file format is not properly platform-independent)

The following features in the Finale Staff Transpositions dialog are ignored: Simplify key; Chromatic transpositions; Set to clef

Tuplets

The vertical position of tuplet brackets is not imported

Finale tuplets with no bracket by default are imported with a bracket

Finale ratios are imported with the second figure of the ratio

Finale brackets drawn as slurs import as square brackets

Voices

Mirrored notes (rarely used) will not import correctly. This can be worked around by converting all notes to normal notes before importing the file

Finale's 4 layers and 2 voices are mapped onto Sibelius's 4 voices. This works for all practical cases, but one can contrive obscure situations where this mapping cannot be done and notes are omitted (e.g. where you are using 5 or more layer/voice combinations in Finale at once)