User Help and Documentation

One use of these plugins is streamlining the merging of documents. See Strategies for Merging Finale Documents for more information.

Documentation for each plug-in is available on these pages.

To install the collection, extract the archive and move the "Patterson Plug-Ins" folder and/or "CopyistHelper" file to Finale's Plug-Ins folder. Then restart Finale.

IMPORTANT: If you are running macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or later, you must install the plugins while you are connected to the Internet. Specifically be sure to restart Finale after copying the zip-file contents to your plugins folder. Once you have restarted Finale and verified the plugins are working, you can then use them offline as much as you wish. (This is an Apple-imposed restriction, not a restriction of the plugins.)

If you are using Finale 97 or 98, you must move the plug-in files themselves into Finale's folder. For later versions, you can keep the Patterson Plug-Ins Collection in a separate folder inside Finale's Plug-Ins folder.

The plug-ins allow you to save a large number of new menu options in your Finale Plug-In menu by means of Saved Settings. At some point you will want to move them to a new machine. See Moving Plugin Settings to Another Machine for instructions on how to do this.