Like Finale, Sibelius lets you enter notes via a MIDI keyboard, but the program works best when you enter notes via the Mac's standard keyboard. Sibelius's interface is built around a series of five number pad-input palettes. For instance, to enter a quarter note, you press F8 on the Mac's keyboard, press the 4 key on the number pad to select the quarter-note value, and click the note into place. Sibelius also gives you outstanding playback options. Not only can it play back with articulations and dynamics, but it can actually swing , playing jazz charts with light, normal, or heavy amounts of this style.
Finale offers no such option for expressive playback.
Finale 2000 and Sibelius differ in speed and in the degree to which they let you modify the basic elements of your scores. In terms of speed, Sibelius easily outpaces Finale's relatively slow scrolling navigation. For instance, when you enter music into the program via a MIDI keyboard, Sibelius takes its best guess as to where to place the split point in the resulting piano score. By contrast, Finale lets you set the split point manually. This is especially useful for piano pieces in which one hand routinely plays keys that the other usually occupies.