Scanning a .PDF into SmartScore Lite X2

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halo2party
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Joined: Sun Mar 16, 2014 6:29 pm
Finale Version: PC 2014
Operating System: Mac

Post by halo2party » Sun Mar 16, 2014 6:37 pm

I already understand that Finale, of any version, cannot read a .PDF file but only MusicXML files and its own .MUS file.
Finale 2014 for PC (the version I am using) comes with the SmartScore Lite X2 (version 8.0.2) which can, provided you have a scanner connected to your computer, scan an image and transcribe the notes on the page with a high rate of accuracy.
I need a program that can register a .PDF file as a scanning unit. What I mean is: I have a scanner that SmartScore can use to scan an image. I need something that can scan a .PDF file directly from my computer and have Finale 2014 read it (like saving a music score as a .PDF but in reverse).
I have a fairly large score I need put into Finale that would be very inconvenient to punch in by hand but also very wasteful to print off every page only to re-scan them into Finale.
Does anyone know of a program that can do this?
Thanks!


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Peter Thomsen
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Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2003 6:47 pm
Finale Version: Finale v27.4
Operating System: Mac

Post by Peter Thomsen » Sun Mar 16, 2014 10:49 pm

Welcome to the forum!


1) If the PDF files are "printed" from a music notation program, then you should consider the program PDFtoMusic Pro.

With PDF files printed from notation programs PDFtoMusic Pro will work better than SmartScore X Pro and other {optical scan recognition} programs.
This is because PDFtoMusic Pro knows things that an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program can't know.
For instance, PDFtoMusic Pro knows
- that staff lines really are drawn as lines,
- that a notehead is a musical font character, rather than trying to determine a notehead from a bunch of dark pixels on a page.
This is much more accurate than Music OCR for PDFs created by a music notation program.
SmartScore and other Music OCR programs have to figure out where staff lines and noteheads are from the dots on a page, which is more error-prone.

The flip side is that PDFtoMusic Pro cannot handle optical scans from a scanner at all.
For those you need a Music OCR program like SmartScore, SharpEye, or capella-scan.


2) If the PDFs are optical scans, then you need to convert from PDF to a graphic file format that SmartScore can read.
I have not used SmartScore myself, but it is my guess that uncompressed TIFF is an option (one of the options).

There are several programs that can convert from PDF to a graphic format.
My guess is that you in your Operating System already have a free program for that PDF-to-graphic conversion.
Mac OS X 12.6.9 (Monterey), Finale user since 1996

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miker
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Finale Version: Finale 27.4
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Post by miker » Sun Mar 16, 2014 11:29 pm

I will also suggest to you that you get GOOD with Finale. Scanning will give you numerous errors, in almost every case. There will be missed notes and rests, misread tuplets, wonky measures with time signatures of 18/4, entire sections placed in the wrong staves, and an entire score shifted by an eight note. The more you know about Finale, the more easily you will recognize what can be corrected and how to do it, and when it's better to cut your losses, delete a section, and re-enter it with Simple or Speedy entry.

I'm doing a lot of that now, myself, making learning tracks for my chorus. It's faster than entering from scratch, but not a lot, I'm afraid.

That being said, I agree with Peter about PDF to Music Pro. It will work pretty well, IF your PDF was generated directly from a music program. If it's a PDF of a scan, that won't work. And, in my experience, converting PDF to TIFF doesn't work very well either, if at all.

Sorry we can't be more encouraging, but that's the way it is, with scanning. Regardless of what you see in the advertisements.
Finale 27 | SmartScorePro 64
Mac OS 13.2.1 Ventura
Copyist for Barbershop Harmony Society

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