Ability to Open PDF Files in Musescore
The title says it all really.
I understand that files saved in PDF format by scoring programs - as opposed to scans - can be opened in some score writing programs. I have acquired quite a few of these over the years and often want to edit them. It'd be some much nicer to be able to do so in MS rather than have to try to alter the printed copy by hand
Comments
There is only one (non free) software that can (try) to read PDF files generated from scoring programs and it's PDFToMusicXML. You can try a free copy on their website.
In reply to There is only one (non free) by [DELETED] 5
Thanks. I obviously misunderstood and thought it was a common feature in commercial software.
Anyway the only software I could find is called "PDF To Music Pro". It did quite a good job but the result would still need a lot of editing. The main problem with it is that the free (trial) version will only do one page and at $199 for the full version it's beyond my means
In reply to Thanks. I obviously by fatwarry
In general, whether the PDF came from a scan or was saved directly from a program is pretty irrelevant. Either way, it's still a very difficult task for a program to attempt to deciper all those lines and ovals and sort it out as music. As with real time MIDI entry, current technology is limited to the point that it's practically a given that more work will be required in clean up than would be required to enter the music from scratch.
In reply to In general, whether the PDF by Marc Sabatella
You're absolutely right, Marc. In the meantime I tried Audiveris - I only mention it in case anyone else is interested. "Out of the box" I couldn't get decent results with a PDF as input or one of my own scans. In both cases the original was perfect to the human eye. Now, it may be that you can tweak settings here and there to improve the results but for the amount I'd be likely to use it it'd be quicker for me to key it into MS from scratch. Shame really as it's such a worthwhile project and a lot of work has clearly gone into it
In reply to Thanks. I obviously by fatwarry
"PDF To Music Pro" does a very good job, indeed.
It will even playback your scores, songs even in words in 4 different languages!
If you can not afford the full version, just use the demo version and export your documents page by page to music.xml format.
Later, after having imported them into MuseScore you can stitch them together again.
Well, yes I did say it had done a fairly good job but it was far from perfect. The errors were mainly ties being interpreted as slurs (IE tied to the wrong note) or as crescendo "hairpins". But notes were also misplaced, dynamic markings assigned to the wrong stave a couple of nasty clashes of notehead with text and so on.
In some circumstances it might be worth the effort to clean it up - and of course I don't know how much of the problem was due to PDFtomusipro and how much may have been MS' XML import - but in this case it was far quicker and easier to resort to Tippex and a pen. Having said that I will definitely keep it and will probably use it in future as you suggest