Dragging my feet, part 4,862

I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned this before — (he’s mentioned this before) — but the abandonment of Finale by its developer last August has thrown me for a loop. Neither of the programs touted as acceptable replacements is intuitive in the least, and neither has extensive documentation in print.

One of them — and here I am being deliberately cagey — has extensive video documentation, but even with two monitors that’s a pain the ass. Plus, the defining feature of video is that it’s “live,” i.e., it doesn’t stop for you to absorb or practice what it’s teaching you. Also plus, my learning style doesn’t deal with video well.

I’ve more or less settled on one of the two programs to force myself to learn it, and yesterday I decided to look for a printed manual. Amazon had a couple of books, but not for the current version. I tried the online version, which is extensive, but again, that means having a browser open and that way lies procrastination (the bad kind).

And so I decided to take the online documentation, copy/paste it into a word processing document, and then format it appropriately. Pro tip: Standardize your headings and what they signify, particularly the sizes of nesting headings.

So, Company X, if you’re reading this and figured out that I meant you and are somehow miffed that I’ve created my own personal print documentation for what I’ve been assured is your fabulous music layout program (assumes facts not in evidence so far), you can 1) have your lawyers send me a cease-and-desist letter; or b) hire me to clean up your online formatting and ready it for your downloadable PDF version.

You should really take me up on b).