Exporting Finale files to ePub format

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BrianHayesMusic
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Post by BrianHayesMusic » Fri Jan 07, 2022 4:53 am

Hello all,

(I've posted here many times in the past but Finale apparently deleted my account and forced me to start over.)

I've recently published some paperback versions of some of my own solo classical guitar arrangements and have also published in eBook format as well. Publishing eBooks is particularly easy with Amazon KDP and Lulu but Barnes&Noble is another story. They require an ePub format and when starting with a PDF (which is what Finale files are typically converted to) and attempting to convert to ePub, it proves to be a complete fail. (And this is after me working on this for days and bringing in help from professional publishers in various other forums.)

You could imagine my excitement what I discovered Finale's "Export to" feature which is supposed to convert directly from the Finale format to ePub! But Alas, it did not work. Many of the notes in my score were represented as strange symbols that bore no resemblance to a musical score. But why would Finale have the feature if it doesn't work?! I confess that I have an ancient version of Finale (2012 to be exact). Could this possible be a glitch that existed in my version, one that has been corrected in newer versions of Finale? If so, I will upgrade ASAP. I just want to be sure that the "Export to" feature will, in fact, produce an accurate representation of my score in ePub format before upgrading to a newer version.

Any help is appreciated!

Best,
Brian Hayes


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motet
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Post by motet » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:02 am

Hard to say if anything has changed there--I kind of doubt it, but I could be wrong. I've attached a Finale-generated EPUB file (zipped) for you to test.

It's odd that you can't convert PDF to EPUB. Surely that's a common thing. You might try a different program from whatever you're using. Perhaps Adobe Acrobat? It costs money but is probably cheaper than a Finale upgrade.

Let us know how the EPUB looks.
Attachments
Think_on_Me_SA_TB.zip
(32.84 KiB) Downloaded 59 times
Last edited by motet on Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

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motet
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Post by motet » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:07 am

Don't make PDF from Finale with that Export function, by the way--it's trash. Use a PDF virtual printer like CutePDF.

BrianHayesMusic
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Post by BrianHayesMusic » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:20 am

Yeah, same result as I'm getting. Forgive me for being such a newbie but I'm not sure how this works or what "Export" exactly even means? When I choose "Export to" > "ePub" in Finale, it saves a file with an ePub extension and a conversion has taken place, correct? The software that I'm opening the file with is Calibre. Or are you saying that Calibre is making the conversion? Once it opens in Calibre, here's what it looks like. And yours looks exactly the same as this:

https://www.classicalguitarorlando.com/ ... b-test.png

BrianHayesMusic
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Post by BrianHayesMusic » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:22 am

motet,

No, when I create PDFs from Finale, I'm using the Adobe PDF printer driver. Good, right? I never even knew about the Export to feature until just the other day.

And thank you for your responses and your help!

BrianHayesMusic
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Post by BrianHayesMusic » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:28 am

motet,

I must have missed your Adobe Acrobat reference. Yes, this is exactly what I use but how does Adobe work in conjunction with converting Finale files to ePub? Unless you're referring converting PDFs to ePub? This was the biggest fail of everything else that I tried. The only thing that's come close to getting the job done, so far, is converting PDF to a Word doc, which is a format that Barnes&Noble will accept, by the way. It almost works but not quite. Still some degradation of the score.

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motet
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Post by motet » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:59 am

You're making ePub from Finale the right way, and yes I meant use Acrobat to convert from PDF to ePub.

From you picture it looks like the proper fonts aren't being referenced. Does Acrobat have options to embed fonts in the document? You might experiment with those. In general you do want to embed the fonts, I thing.

Anyway, that's about all I know, I'm afraid. I suspect upgrading Finale won't help, but maybe getting the font problem straightened out will.

BrianHayesMusic
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Post by BrianHayesMusic » Fri Jan 07, 2022 6:10 am

Thank you for your help.

I’m still puzzled, though, why the topic of Adobe keeps coming up? I’m trying to Export from Finale to EPUB, using Finale‘s “export to“ feature. I’ve been beating the dead horse of trying to convert PDF to EPUB all week long. Top publishing experts can’t even make that work. Again, I truly appreciate your responses.

BrianHayesMusic
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Post by BrianHayesMusic » Fri Jan 07, 2022 6:28 am

To put my issue into simpler terms, for those of you out there who may be able to help: How do I use Finale’s “export to” feature to convert my Finale files to EPUB format? Here’s the result I’m getting:

https://www.classicalguitarorlando.com ... b-test.png

BuonTempi
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Post by BuonTempi » Fri Jan 07, 2022 10:42 am

That's a classic example of fonts not being recognised. Some later versions of Finale do put the required fonts inside the .epub package (which is a zip archive of lots of files and folders). But it appears that 2012 doesn't.

So, you need to have the Finale fonts on the viewing computer.

I can create an .epub from Finale 2012, and it shows up correctly for me on a computer with Finale fonts. Here it is.

FWIW: Finale 26 doesn't include the fonts, either. Finale 25 does, I think.
Attachments
Untitled #1.epub.zip
(11.47 KiB) Downloaded 55 times

BrianHayesMusic
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Post by BrianHayesMusic » Fri Jan 07, 2022 4:06 pm

Thanks BuonTempi,

So how do I get the Finale fonts onto my viewing computer? I'm assuming that's the problem. Your document looks the same as mine, on my system, with the same font issue.

All I'm trying to accomplish, here, is to publish my book of arrangements as an eBook on Barnes&Noble and this has been going on for almost a week, now, with immense amounts of effort and receiving help from a lot of smart people. (Most of that time was spent trying to convert PDF to ePub in addition to trying to get individual Jpeg files to work.) I mean, this is really ridiculous. It's as if one can't publish music created in Finale in eBook format.

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motet
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Post by motet » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:06 pm

BrianHayesMusic wrote:
Fri Jan 07, 2022 6:10 am
I’m still puzzled, though, why the topic of Adobe keeps coming up? I’m trying to Export from Finale to EPUB, using Finale‘s “export to“ feature. I’ve been beating the dead horse of trying to convert PDF to EPUB all week long. Top publishing experts can’t even make that work. Again, I truly appreciate your responses.
Since Finale's ePub export doesn't work, I think you're forced to convert a PDF file instead. This has got to be a very common thing. Make sure you embed the fonts in the PDF file before trying to convert it to ePub. Look at the options in your Adobe print-to-PDF software. Or try Microsoft print-to-PDF, which comes with Windows. Or download the free CutePDF.

BuonTempi
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Post by BuonTempi » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:18 pm

BrianHayesMusic wrote:
Fri Jan 07, 2022 4:06 pm
So how do I get the Finale fonts onto my viewing computer? I'm assuming that's the problem. Your document looks the same as mine, on my system, with the same font issue.
If you haven't got Maestro etc on the viewing computer, then the fonts need to be embedded within the epub document itself. Epub is glorified HTML.

Have you tried using Sigil, the free, open-source epub editor?

https://sigil-ebook.com

If there's anything that can sort it out (and embed the fonts into the epub pckage) then it's that.

The alternative (which some do) is to create an epub book that is just a container for PDFs or JPEGs of each page.
BrianHayesMusic wrote:
Fri Jan 07, 2022 4:06 pm
It's as if one can't publish music created in Finale in eBook format.
It's certainly been a long-standing issue:

https://forum.makemusic.com/default.aspx?f=5&m=418910

Perhaps raise a support request with MM and ask how it's supposed to work, with reference to fonts.

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motet
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Post by motet » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:56 pm

It's disheartening that MakeMusic includes broken things in Finale and then never fixes them. It wastes a lot of people's time.

BrianHayesMusic
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Post by BrianHayesMusic » Sat Jan 08, 2022 1:03 am

BuonTempi wrote:
Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:18 pm
Have you tried using Sigil, the free, open-source epub editor?

https://sigil-ebook.com

If there's anything that can sort it out (and embed the fonts into the epub pckage) then it's that.

Perhaps raise a support request with MM and ask how it's supposed to work, with reference to fonts.
Yes, I tried Sigil but all of the YouTube video tutorials are using an older version and I haven't the slightest clue on how to even get past the stage of opening a PDF is Sigil, let alone converting it to ePub. One tutorial suggested converting it in Calibre and then opening it in Sigil, which I've also tried. I think I will open up a ticket with MM.

This thing has really given me a good old-fashioned ass-kicking, I can tell you that.

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motet
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Post by motet » Sat Jan 08, 2022 1:30 am

I seriously double MM will be able to fix it (even if they could, they never release fixes between versions), so I would focus on the PDF->ePub route. I'm sure you can figure Sigil out, if not from YouTube videos, then by searching in Google.

BuonTempi
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Post by BuonTempi » Sat Jan 08, 2022 10:32 am

BrianHayesMusic wrote:
Sat Jan 08, 2022 1:03 am
Yes, I tried Sigil but all of the YouTube video tutorials are using an older version and I haven't the slightest clue on how to even get past the stage of opening a PDF is Sigil, let alone converting it to ePub.
I was possibly thinking that you might be able to open Finale's .epub document in Sigil, embed the fonts, and resave.

https://www.datalogics.com/blog/ebooks/ ... epub-file/

ah: it does say you need OTF fonts. I can't remember if MM actually released all their fonts as OTF versions or not. (And obviously the latest SMuFL fonts won't work with F2012....!)

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motet
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Post by motet » Sat Jan 08, 2022 8:49 pm

First you need to figure out how to make good PDFs from Finale. That's possible. Then maybe you can turn them over to an expert who can make ePubs from PDFs. This Has got to be very common, as I said. Forget about getting Finale to make ePubs directly. It sounds like it's not possible.

I know the fact that Finale has an ePub feature makes it logical to assume that it must work. That would be the case with most other software, but not Finale.

mmike
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Post by mmike » Sat Jan 08, 2022 9:23 pm

Obviously the conversion doesn't work in Finale 2012. However, I just tried it in Finale 27 and it works perfectly (as well as an epub file can look, I guess...). I just did File > Export > EPUB, it then asks for a file name and where you want to save it, no other option whatsoever.
This what it looked like (in the Calibre viewer)
epub_test.jpg
a little light perhaps, but all the original notes, layout, etc. are there exactly as in the original musx file.
Maybe it's time to upgrade?
P.S.: By the way, the original mus file was created in Finale 2009 (!) and had been opened and converted in Finale 27 to musx and from there to epub. Seems it shouldn't be a problem doing the same with a file from Finale 2012.
Finale 3.7 > 27.4.1, GPO5, ASUS laptop, 18.4'' display, Intel Core i7, 32GB RAM, WIN 10 Pro, Cubase

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Peter Thomsen
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Post by Peter Thomsen » Sat Jan 08, 2022 10:04 pm

mmike,

That .jpg graphic looks fine.

But do you have the music fonts on the viewing computer?
According to the posts in this thread it seems that some Finale versions do not embed the music fonts in the .epub file.
Mac OS X 12.6.9 (Monterey), Finale user since 1996

mmike
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Post by mmike » Sat Jan 08, 2022 10:29 pm

Seems like this was indeed not the answer - the epub file can't be read on another computer (one that doesn't have Finale installed). a quite pointless Finale "feature" then ...
I haven't checked this, but does that mean that Finale also does not embed fonts when exporting to pdf? personally, I don't care, never use the Finale pdf export, but still ....
Finale 3.7 > 27.4.1, GPO5, ASUS laptop, 18.4'' display, Intel Core i7, 32GB RAM, WIN 10 Pro, Cubase

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David Ward
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Post by David Ward » Sun Jan 09, 2022 10:57 am

mmike wrote:
Sat Jan 08, 2022 10:29 pm
… … …I haven't checked this, but does that mean that Finale also does not embed fonts when exporting to pdf? personally, I don't care, never use the Finale pdf export, but still ....
I don't know about Windows, but on a Mac Finale embeds fonts when exporting to PDF either via Preview or Finale Graphics - except there seems to be an odd problem with Finale Lyrics font. Hard space and or hard hyphen/m-dash don't print correctly on some fancy professional laser printers unless either ‘flattened’ (which requires paid for Adobe Acrobat) or being saved as a PostScript and than re-saved in Preview, or (my preferred solution) remembering to change the font to Times for these two characters. That at least is the case with Finale 26. The font change for just these two characters can be done globally using Finale's text search and replace feature.
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BuonTempi
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Post by BuonTempi » Sun Jan 09, 2022 1:46 pm

David Ward wrote:
Sun Jan 09, 2022 10:57 am
except there seems to be an odd problem with Finale Lyrics font. Hard space and or hard hyphen/m-dash don't print correctly on some fancy professional laser printers unless either ‘flattened’ (which requires paid for Adobe Acrobat) or being saved as a PostScript and than re-saved in Preview,
Almost certainly a transparency issue. Flattening (or indeed, rinsing through PostScript) will remove transparency.

However, that doesn't appear to be a problem for me. Possibly because I've updated my fonts to those in Finale 27?

Apropos of nothing, I have got a reliable crash printing any file with an EPS graphic (my logo!) in it.

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musicxml
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Post by musicxml » Thu Jan 13, 2022 12:46 am

Finale's EPUBs are fixed-layout EPUBs where nearly all the content is in SVG. So Finale embeds the fonts using SVG fonts. Readers like Apple Books support SVG fonts in EPUB, but it looks like Calibre does not.

Does the Barnes and Noble reader support SVG fonts? If so, is there another reader that you can use besides Calibre?

BuonTempi
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Post by BuonTempi » Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:50 pm

Ah: that's super interesting. Thanks Michael. I stand corrected!

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