Finale vs. Finale Allegro?

obviously Finale is better than Allegro, but how much better? what can a person do in Finale that they can't do in Allegro?

Try looking here first: Product Comparison

Product Comparison

EDIT: Ah, you beat me to it

ah... very good link.. I should have found that myself lol

I looked at a chart comparing Finales products and I have some questions. (hopefully you wonderful people here know some of the answers)

Does Allegro come with more and better instrument sounds than Notepad?

What is score merging?

Will I miss the "key sequencer features" that Finale 2008 comes with and Allegro doesn't come with?

Finale 2008 allows "multiple 3rd party music fonts" but Allegro is "limitted". How limited?

Are you a student?

If so, then I wouldn't bother with the lower-end version of the Finale product line. Get the student discount on the full version. It's worth the couple of extra dollars.

Full-version Finale comes with a (limited) version of Garritan Personal Orchestra and a pretty full bevy of soundfonts, all of which can now be played together.

Full version Finale is a professional-level programme for engraving, which also includes a quite good (for a notation programme) playback function.

Originally Posted by Jonathon McKenna

Does Allegro come with more and better instrument sounds than Notepad?

I've never used Allegro, but as far as I know, it uses the same SoftSynth soundfont that Notepad does.

As for your other questions, I'll leave them to other people. I really wouldn't know, as I'm still using Finale 2003a.

I am a student... does it matter what your major is or anything like that?

Even a kindergartener can get a discount.

As Xanic said, as long as you are at a government-recognized institution, you could be studying mortuary sciences for all they care.

They have a special form that you need to get signed or something at school. It's pretty easy, generally just leave it with a secretary at the main office or something.