Hi, all,

I was about to write about all of my problems with the Finale Numerics font when, lo and behold, the 2012b update seems to have fixed them. But I still have two issues with the font that I wanted to share, to see if anyone else has the same issues I have. I plan to submit them as a feature request.

Note that these are requests of a music theory teacher. You may not need these changes.

1) There is no lower case "m" in the new font. This is important when doing a roman numeral analysis. The first thing to do is to note the key, followed by the roman numerals. For minor keys I strongly prefer "Am" to "a" for A minor. You can't do this in the Finale Numerics font. You have to either do the key as an expression, or do it as a lyric, but by changing the font. A pain. And I don't see that MakeMusic will change it, as all slots for the letter "M" are now taken.

2) The capital I and V are not as they appear when writing by hand. Imagine yourself writing by hand a IV chord: you do the capital I and the capital V, then draw a horizontal line at the top and bottom of this figure. That helps it stand out in comparison with the lower case numbers. But it's also problematic in another way: students see the IV in print (in my exercises) and then write it that way, without the top and bottom bars. Oh, sure, I'll tell them to make sure to put in the bars, but I'm not providing a very good example for them.

Anyone else bothered by these?

Andrew Levin
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