I came on the forum looking for an answer to this question and appreciate the response from Drew.   I think the issue is there are so many fireworks out there and with new fireworks coming out every year, I don't think it is humanly possible for the Finale Team to create the simulations in a timely manner. Currently I would estimate 99.9% of the fireworks are not available in Finale 3D and this constitutes the current biggest flaw in the product.   Meanwhile, many users of Finale are forced to learn how to build cakes in the program themselves, which is a time consuming process, and it is frustrating to imagine all the other users spending hours duplicating this work to create the same cakes just because there is not a repository for user generated VDLs.  The user generated VDLs/simulations may not be perfect, but they are being used anyways by the users because they do not have any alternative and "the show must go on!". I can understand if there is hesitation about having possibly imperfect user created simulations available, however the time saving aspect of this process would far outweigh any issues with accuracy in terms of benefit for the customer.  These simulations/VDLs could also clearly be labeled as user generated content (use at your own risk!) and perhaps even rated for accuracy by the community, which over time would lead to a perfection of the simulations on a scale the Finale 3D team could not possibly accomplish.   Overall, I appreciate the response given to the original poster, but in my humble opinion there is a major opportunity being missed here. I believe the Finale 3D team is underestimating what crowd-sourcing can accomplish.  This solution is so obvious and would work so well that I would be interested in hearing the most detailed explanation possible on why it hasn't been done and/or why it isn't feasible to do going forward.      

Hello, sorry for the delay, I have been running circles here recently.   1. Finale3D Hobbyist 2. The first line of positions is a cake line labeled C-01 to C-03, The back line is all artillery labeled P-01-09. 3. As of right now, I am using the following 1. Starfire 2. Position Name>Cake First>Event Time 3. Rack (Constraint)   Thank you in advance!

Thanks Drew appreciate it.

Hi Jonathan S.,   The method for setting font sizes in reports is different from the method for labels. The steps in the article you mentioned apply to reports, and are tailored to the Hobbyist version of Finale 3D. The same approach can be used in Pro, but it still only applies to reports, and since Pro offers full report customization, there is an easier approach.   To learn about customizing labels (an exclusively Pro feature), check out https://finale3d.com/documentation/labels-basic-instructions/   The font size on labels isn't set directly like it is for reports. Each label consists of up to four rows with content areas on the left and right side of each row. The front size in each row is a function of a) the row height, and b) the vertical padding. The taller the row, the larger the font. The more the padding, the smaller the font, etc.   If it were practical to have a live preview (from a software developer perspective), we would done it ages ago! Unfortunately, it's just not possible given the architecture of Finale 3D. As a stopgap, we added the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+B, which regenerates the last selected document. This eliminates a good number of clicks, but obviously falls short of a live preview. As a next step, I hope to add a preview button to the report and label configuration dialogs. This will speed things up further by eliminating the need to save/close the dialogs before regenerating.

Thank you that's very helpful.

Hi Drew, just something I've noticed as I've had this problem a lot as well. MP3s from GarageBand (on a Mac) do NOT do this but MP3s from audacity always do popping/crackling. Not sure if that'll help track down the issue at some point or not.

I've been trying to adjust the font size of certain areas a label.. I've followed this: https://finale3d.com/documentation/report-font-size/ ,  but the EM size in the blueprint window didn't seem to do anything, and I don't want everything sized up there are just certain areas I'd like to be bigger as shown in my image.       Not sure if Drew will read this but something that would be helpful is when you are editing a label template or anything you're going to ultimately print out, it would be nice to have a live preview window of what the parameters you're changing are actually doing. That might be very hard to do but if it's in the realm of possibilities it would be a welcomed addition I think.

Welcome to the Finale 3D forum!   If you send your Finale 3D show (FIN) file to support@finale3d.com, I would be happy to take a look and give you some tips on racking.

I run Hobbyist and have designed my racks.  I have 16x36 shot 2.5", 10x20 shot 2.5", 4x36 shot 3.0" and 4x20 shot 3.0".  Problem I'm having is it won't let me put all my shots into the different racks.  I want to put my shells in the 4x36 3.0" racks and it says due to angles 51 won't fit, well not sure why that matters I don't have any crazy angles 25 degrees at most.  The next issue I'm having is putting my single shot mines/comets into the different racks it will allow some but not all of them.  I've googled and searched to no end so maybe someone can help me here.  I have 7 front positions for mines/comets and 2 back positions for the shells.  Maybe this is the limitations with Hobbyist, I just don't know.

Hello, my name is Mark, and I am located in Lake Saint Louis.  I don't own a fireworks company as this is just supposed to be fun for me Ha.  Just trying to learn here and get efficient with Finale definetly a lot different than show creator.  Looking forward to learning some things here and hopefully getting my questions answered, and maybe one day I will be able to return the favor.