Problem with ScoreMerger

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tdlucas
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Post by tdlucas » Mon May 07, 2018 5:50 am

I used ScoreMerger for the first time, trying to get one PDF of parts for a string quartet. It's really a crummy function. Am I asking too much to expect the parts to emerge correctly? All four parts were titled "Cello," and the violin parts didn't even have the name of the piece or the composer or the arranger at the top of the page. And there was no final bar at the end of any of the parts, just double bars. It took me a good half hour to get them right. Is MM going to fix this? (Yes, I edited all the parts before I tried to merge them.)


BuonTempi
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Post by BuonTempi » Mon May 07, 2018 9:17 am

tdlucas wrote:trying to get one PDF of parts for a string quartet.
One PDF containing all four parts, in sequence? Probably easiest to merge four PDF files together, rather than doing this in Finale.
If you're trying to create a Finale score from individual part files, then for a string quartet, it's probably just as easy to add the extra staves to one of the parts, then copy and paste the others in.
tdlucas wrote:It's really a crummy function.
It's not without crumb. But it can work well under supervision. Make sure you tick the "Edit Instrument Junction Between Files", so that you can correct its assumptions.
tdlucas wrote:And there was no final bar at the end of any of the parts, just double bars.
Did you check "Treat As Independent Movements"?
tdlucas wrote:Is MM going to fix this?
Make sure you report the error to them, supplying exact steps to reproduce the problem, and sample files.
Last edited by BuonTempi on Mon May 07, 2018 5:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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motet
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Post by motet » Mon May 07, 2018 4:02 pm

It's not meant to join four different instrumental parts into one, but rather to merge different movements of the same piece with the same instrumentation.

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zuill
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Post by zuill » Mon May 07, 2018 4:04 pm

Actually, that's not true. Combining parts into one score is one of the 2 functions of the feature.

https://usermanuals.finalemusic.com/Fin ... cshid=6023

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motet
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Post by motet » Mon May 07, 2018 4:12 pm

I didn't know that. Can I take a bunch of extracted parts made long ago and merge to get a conductor's score, while retaining the part formatting?

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zuill
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Post by zuill » Mon May 07, 2018 5:39 pm

No. Part formatting is not retained. Sorry. This has been discussed over the years, but that is one of the prices one pays for merging them into one score.

If you extracted those files from a score, don't you still have the score?

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motet
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Post by motet » Mon May 07, 2018 5:41 pm

I do, but it would be nice if they were linked parts.

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tdlucas
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Post by tdlucas » Mon May 07, 2018 6:13 pm

BuonTempi wrote:
tdlucas wrote:trying to get one PDF of parts for a string quartet.
One PDF containing all four parts, in sequence? Probably easiest to merge four PDF files together, rather than doing this in Finale.
If you're trying to create a Finale score from individual part files, then for a string quartet, it's probably just as easy to add the extra staves to one of the parts, then copy and paste the others in.
tdlucas wrote:It's really a crummy function.
It's not without crumb. But it can work well under supervision. Make sure you tick the "Edit Instrument Junction Between Files", so that you can correct its assumptions.
tdlucas wrote:And there was no final bar at the end of any of the parts, just double bars.
Did you check "Treat As Independent Movements"?
tdlucas wrote:Is MM going to fix this?
Make sure you report the error to them, supplying exact steps to reproduce the problem, and sample files.[/quote

Two things. 1) How do I merge four PDFs into one PDF? 2) How do I report a problem to MM?

BuonTempi
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Post by BuonTempi » Mon May 07, 2018 8:29 pm

There are any number of software tools for combining PDFs. I would avoid the websites that claim to do this, as they no doubt harvest the contents of your data.

On Windows, PDFSam seems to be a respectable choice, though there are others. I would stick with open source software, as you can be sure it's not being naughty.

I'm on a Mac, which comes with a variety of tools. (Preview app, Automator actions, etc.)

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miker
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Post by miker » Mon May 07, 2018 8:34 pm

1. There are a number of third-party apps to merge PDF files. A Google search should find them for you.

2. Go here https://makemusic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/topics, log into your account, and click on the Submit a Ticket tab at the top of the page.
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ebiggs1
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Post by ebiggs1 » Wed May 09, 2018 7:04 am

Then don't hold your breath. :D
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MikeHalloran
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Post by MikeHalloran » Fri May 11, 2018 1:32 pm

miker wrote:1. There are a number of third-party apps to merge PDF files. A Google search should find them for you ...
The big dog is Adobe Acrobat Pro but a) it’s expensive and b) most of the functionality is probably not needed by most users.

I use it daily in my day job. Although there other tools, it’s so fast and flexible for what I do that it’s worth every penny for the hours that I save.
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GarryW
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Post by GarryW » Fri May 11, 2018 8:41 pm

Don't know if this is directly relevant, but:

I have a songbook. I use a single large Finale file to hold all the tunes, and I produce a PDF from it. I then use separate Microsoft Word documents to generate PDFs containing a cover page, a table of contents, various page numbers and page headers, and various indices.

I.e., to do things that Finale cannot easily do. Resulting in a pile of PDF files.

What to do?

I use a a program called "PdfMeld" to overlay and to merge the various PDFs together into a master final PDF. See http://www.fytek.com. Cost is $60 forever (as opposed to $180 per year for Acrobat.) It's reliable, and I've been using it for years. It has a basic GUI front end, or you can write scripts to give an abundance of extra control.

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