importing PDFs into Finale 25, 26, or 27

[meb]

Is there some way to import a music score PDF into any of the newer versions of Finale?
I'm trying to find some work around. I can import into Sibelius (very old version) using their facility to create an .xml file, which usually requires a good bit of editing, but I was hoping that someone on this forum would have a better idea.
Thanks for any suggestions.
M

[motet]

There is some app that will do music recognition on a PDF file; I forget its name, but someone will know. Presumably that will create a MusicXML file that can then be imported into Finale.

[meb]

Thanks. There was an older post referring to a $200 product by MakeMusic for converting PDFs, but I don't do enough PDF importing to make it worth the expenditure.
M.

[miker]

There are some products for scanning or reading PDFs; SmartScore is the one I use. But cost is an issue, as is the learning curve.

There are also various apps that will look at a printed score and play it back. The quality of the playback will probably not be perfect.

[boldest06]

SmartScore 64 Pro
PDFtoMusic Pro
ScanScore

[ebiggs1]

I am a Smart Score Pro 64 user. I have used a Smart Score product for a very long time. It is the best but it is expensive. The good is, if you have good copy and not too complicated copy SS 64 will do a fantastic job. The downside is if you do not have a nice original it isn't worth doing as editing will be a pain. If it is a complicated score SS 64 isn't worth the time it takes to edit afterwards if it get it at all.
The SS64 editor is painfully slow and ambiguous. I usually just let Finale do all the editing.

SS 64 will scan and read a PDF.

Finale used to have a lite version of it included so if you find someone with an older copy it might work. I don't remember but 2014.5 may have had it.

[miker]

Ernest,

I agree with most of your comments about SmartScore, but I find even complex scores can usually be handled without too many problems. The biggest issues I find are in scores that don’t conform to a “normal” layout, with short systems, graphics, etc. Where many users experience fails is when instruments/voices are switching staves: for example, you may have an SATB score with four staves, but sometimes, it may go to three: S/TB, or A/TB, or even SA/TB. Learning how to handle that is tricky, but in the long run, I can’t imagine being without it.

And learning the shortcuts really speeds up the work. It’s a very shortcut-dependent program, almost as complex as Finale.

[motet]

I thought there was a program that did music recognition from PDFs made by a music notation program. Such a PDF has more information about what kind of note is placed where than a pure graphic.

[ebiggs1]

I thought there was a program that did music recognition from PDFs made by a music notation program.

Smart Scores Pro 64 doesn't recognize PDFs. It converts them to a tiff file and recognizes that. I don't know why but that how it works.
I find that if I convert them first to a tiff it sometimes works better. Not always. I suspect it is because I can set the resolution to whatever I want. I usually set it above 400 dpi sometimes even higher.

[miker]

I thought there was a program that did music recognition from PDFs made by a music notation program. Such a PDF has more information about what kind of note is placed where than a pure graphic.

That would be PDFtoMusic Pro, from Myriad https://www.myriad-online.com/en/produc ... sicpro.htm

It works great for original PDFs from a notation program, only. It won't handle scans or copies.

[motet]

Thanks. I think now I misunderstood what the O.P. wants.

[AnneMillington]

Try this little gizmo. ~$100.

https://www.musitek.com/music-to-xml.html

It seems to do everything I need, given that I have Finale 27 on the receiving end. As long as the pdfs (scanned or native) are clean, it is pretty accurate. Sometimes I will edit a pdf prior to running the script on it, so that it doesn't have to struggle with unneeded staves, text or irrelevant musical notation. It accurately retains quite a bit of digital information, so that I can do a lot of post processing in Finale.

[miker]

Anne,

The only reason that I don't recommend that app is that it's a "black box." You have no opportunity to edit the score, prior to XML export. That can be a big deal, in terms of getting what you want. Yes, you can do your post-processing in Finale, but the full versions of SmartScore show the original and recognized scores right above each other, making comparisons easy. Also, duration errors are clearly marked, and can almost always be easily corrected. Easier here, than in Finale, for sure.

And as a Finale owner, you can buy SmartScore Pro for $200, half the regular price. If you have the need for this, skip the lattes for a few weeks, and go for it!

[AnneMillington]

Yes, all true! But I tried to avail myself of the reduced price offer, and couldn't get a response. I was in "casting about with a deadline" mode, so I just went with what I could get quickly. It is good to know that getting SmartScore Pro might still be an option.

[ebiggs1]

Anne,
If you email the Smart Score folks they will respond quickly. I have even talked with them on the phone. They will clear up anything that wasn't working for you.
EB

[AnneMillington]

Thank you, EB; I will give it another try.

Anne

[ebiggs1]

Good copy and SS 64 works very well.

[meb]

As it happens, Finale 2014 actually has a facility for importing PDFs. I tried it and had smooth sailing, but I was only importing a score made in Fin27 and exported as a Finale-created PDF. So it's not a good test for anything less predictable.
In any case, if you have an old copy of Fin 2014 and think you might need to import a music PDF, don't discard that older version.
M.

[miker]

Those older versions used SmartScore Lite, which, as I explained above, does not give you the opportunity to edit the recognized score. This lack gave rise to the "scanning ***" attitude of so many users.

[ebiggs1]

Finale 2014 actually has a facility for importing PDFs.

As I recall it is pretty limited in what it will scan. Did a 'fairly' good job on single instrument or piano but not much else. Perhaps quartet?

[mark carlson]

Finale 2014 actually has a facility for importing PDFs.

As I recall it is pretty limited in what it will scan. Did a 'fairly' good job on single instrument or piano but not much else. Perhaps quartet?

I am currently faced with the same issue. I was given PDFs of a piano quartet score (and also separate parts) that were done in Sibelius in 2007. The composer hired someone to copy for him but doesn't remember who, and he doesn't even have the Sibelius files, as he did not use the program at the time.

In this thread, everyone has mentioned SmartScore. Does anyone know about ScanScore? It's not expensive and claims to be able to scan and import into Finale complex scores.

Thanks,

Mark

[Peter Thomsen]

mark carlson,


There are two sorts of PDF files, vector or raster.


1) A program such as Finale or Sibelius will create vector PDFs.
If you have vector PDFs, PDFtoMusic Pro will create MusicXML files from the PDFs.
The MusicXML files can then be read by Finale.

With PDF files printed from notation programs PDFtoMusic Pro will work better than SmartScore X Pro and other optical scanning programs. This is because PDFtoMusic Pro knows things that an OCR 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 optical scanning for PDFs created by a notation program. SmartScore and other optical scanners 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 an OCR program like SmartScore, SharpEye, or capella-scan.

Since the PDF files were created from a music notation program (Sibelius), you should try PDFtoMusic Pro.

Hyperlink to PDFtoMusic Pro in the post by boldest06, on 2022–07–15.


2) Scanned PDFs will be raster files.
A score scanning software may be able to create MusicXML files from them, but you are likely to be disappointed with the results. There will be errors.
Depending on the quality of the scan, the style of music and the look of the original engraving, there will be more or less errors, but there will always be errors.

[miker]

Mark,

If you send me one of your PDFs, I’ll run it through SmartScore, and see how it does.

[ebiggs1]

A score scanning software may be able to create MusicXML files from them, but you are likely to be disappointed with the results. There will be errors.

I have not used PDFtoMusic Pro before so I can't comment on it. I have used and do use Smart Score Pro 64. It has gotten 100% accurate results from high quality copies for me. If you have even slightly off copies you won't get perfect results. It depends on how much editing you are willing to do vs inputting it by hand. A "a piano quartet score" from good copy should be easy for Smart Score Pro 64. I think they have a demo but it isn't inexpensive at least to me it isn't.