Figured Bass Questions part II

[Trent J]

Good Afternoon All,

Thanks to those who have helped so far with my figured bass problems.

After reading many articles on the subject in the group... I came across the 
intriguing idea of using ‘Lyrics’ to type set the figured bass. (And is 
still at the moment nearly the only way to do so with finale2005)

Using Lyrics mode raises a couple of questions...

1.	How do I get the sharps/flats and naturals in... they’re not in the 
standard Latin encoding?

2.	Using the extender lines ie the melisma mode \melismaOn \melismaOff I 
should be able to get figured bass extender lines but the lyric extenders 
are set too low. They should be set halfway on the number. Is there any 
chance of changing the height of the extender line or would turning the 
hyphen into a continuous line be better or even possible?

3.	Left or right aligned... I’m not to sure how lyric verses are aligned 
whether they are aligned with each other or not or just with the note. Eg.   
  If was to enter #3 in the first verse and enter 5 in the second verse 
would it be under the 3? Or would left alignment be better 3# and the 5 
underneath the 3... slashes on notes etc don’t bother me as sometimes the 
figures don’t really make sense especially in French Figured Bass notation. 
A slash on a note can indicate either a raised semitone or play a 
naturalised 5th (so actually strike the note down a semitone – as a perfect 
5th from Dsharp (Eflat) A  sharp (B flat). For example in Couperin’s Les 
Nations which I’m typesetting at the moment  Couperin will indicate a 
slashed 5 over a D sharp the harmonies from the other parts make it clear 
that Couperin didn’t mean an a sharp raised semitone to B but rather down a 
semitone to a natural.

4.	How can I ensure that the verse lines are close together and not 
separated by a lot of white space?

Any help would be appreciated or any other solutions to the figured bass 
problem that people might have. From the talk in the group a lot of people 
have been setting baroque music but I have not seen any finished examples 
showing how people solved their problems.

Thanks again.

Trent