Import / Copy Paste from PDF etc

• Jun 10, 2013 - 23:04

Hi,

Very new to this but thought i'd ask. I am currently arranging some music by Tchaikovsky. It is available as a pdf on IMSLP.

Is it possible to copy from the pdf to paste into musescore?
or to import a midi version of it into musescore?

instead of me re-entering the complete score to work on arranging, surely there is a way to elimate this and simply copy and paste in some way or other?

Thanks,
E


Comments

Copying from PDF can theoretically be done with some different software (an [O]ptical [M]usic [R]ecognition application) but, in practice, it is so error-prone that it isn't worth it. You can import a MIDI into MuseScore but, again, probably not worth it; basically a lot is lost in the translation when it comes to MIDI since it is, essentially, just a 20th century version of a pianola sheet.

Accept that MuseScore is predominately a music authoring package, practice copying things into it and you will,, in all likelihood, rapidly get good at it.

It's also worth looking here as someone may have already done it for a popular composer such as Tchaikovsky:
http://musescore.com/sheetmusic?text=Tchaikovsky

If you do end up having to do all the work yourself but get stuck (many people initially run into problems with Voices, tuplets etc.) then post again (in a new post) and you'll get help.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Obviously this is not the question :)
I guess you want to copy the notes from a PDF to MuseScore. This is not possible. You need to read the notes and enter the notes in MuseScore. If you are not willing to do this, you can look for the sheet music online. If you can't find it, and are not willing to enter the notes in MuseScore yourself, you can maybe contract someone to do it for you?

Also a possible solution is using an OMR software, as explained in a comment above. Depending on the complexity of the piece and the quality of the PDF, it can give variable results. In any case, you will have to edit the result further in MuseScore.

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