CSV file – Shooting points coordinates

[Pyro_84860000]

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We can extract a CSV file from SketchUp. Thus we have our shooting position coordinates. Could you please explain me how to inject our shooting positions coordinates into the Finale 3D CSV and directly have all our shooting points in Finale 3D? Thank you.

[Will]

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All of the table windows in Finale support copy/paste between Excel, which is the general way to import data in Finale.

 

You can copy/paste rows or cells or selection rectangles of cells, in either direction to or from Excel.

 

To select a rectangle of cells in a Finale table, double-click on a cell and hold the button down on the second click, and drag to enlarge the box.  When you then copy (control-C), the data from those cells will be placed in the copy buffer.  You can paste (control-V) into Excel or NotePad to look at the data in the copy buffer.

 

If you copy/paste cells or a rectangle of cells, the dimensions of the data copied into the copy buffer should match the selected rectangle of cells you are pasting into, so the data fit correctly.

 

If you copy/paste rows (as opposed to cells) into a Finale table, then the situation is a little different — the copy buffer must contain a header row in addition to the data rows.  The header row contains the names of the columns of data, in English.  When you paste rows into a Finale table, the pasted rows will be added as new rows to the table.  The order of the columns does not matter, because the column names in the header determine how each column of data will be imported (You may need to switch the UI to English to make the column headers match; I can’t remember).  You do not need to have all columns in the copy buffer.  The only required column for pasting into the positions window is the “Position” column with the position name.

 

Pasting rows into Finale always adds the rows.  If the position name of a row matches an existing position name already in the table, then the pasted position name will be extended (example Pos-01 –> Pos-01(01) to avoid the conflict.).  If you want to change data instead of adding new columns, then you are better off pasting over cells or selection rectangles of cells.  You can right click on a column header in Finale and do “Select column” from the context menu to select the full column, as a convenience for copy/paste.

 

Based on these instructions, you have many options for importing your position coordinates with copy/paste.  The same options apply to all the other data windows too — script, effects, blueprints, etc.

 

You can also export the positions table to a CSV or XLS from the blue gear menu in the upper right of the positions table.

 

The only complexity for position coordinates is that the XYZ coordinates are combined into a single column in Finale.  So if your XYZ coordinates are separate columns in the data you want to paste into Finale, then you need to combine them into a single column in Excel using a formula.  In the spreadsheet shown in the image, the formula used in Excel to combine the XYZ coordinates into a single column was: =CONCAT( C5,” “,D5,” “,E5)

 

 

 

[Will]

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For technical folks who want to get the most out of copy/paste between Finale and Excel, here is a documentation article that explains exactly how everything works:

 

Copy/paste

 

There is quite a lot going on behind the scenes when you copy an event from the script or 3D window, like whether the copy buffer contains the positions that the effect is shot from, or the definition of the effect from the effects window.  Since Finale uses the system clipboard for the copy buffer and uses simple CSV-style text for the data, you can always paste into NotePad or Excel to look at the data in the copy buffer, to understand what is going on.

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