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spencer doidge Edited
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Using a current copy of Finale Notepad on my iMac, I open and print a .MUS file from 1997. It is classical guitar music with fingering markings done with Finale in 1997. The music notes print ok, but some of the text is all wrong, as in the wrong font or something. The fingering per se, i.e., the little numbers next to the notes, are gone altogether. 

My objective is to get the files opened in Sibelius. That works, except Sibelius displays the same wrong things exactly the same way Finale prints it wrong. In other words, new Finale software cannot deal correctly with an old Finale file, but beyond that, the MusicXML does as advertised.

Does anybody have an answer for this problem? I selected many different fonts. I would be glad to supply an example of the .MUS files in question, and a scan of the original printout from 1997.

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J ADRIAN VERKOUTEREN Posted
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If no other solution presents itself, why not scan the original printout into Sibelius?

 

When a new version of Finale comes out, I try to re-open and re-save as many of my older works as I can find, and I do wonder what will happen if I miss one and find it has become stuck in a legacy format I cannot open. I realize how extensive a process this can be.

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MIKE HALLORAN Posted
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>The music notes print ok, but some of the text is all wrong, as in the wrong font or something.<

 

That is what is happening. Unless the font you used in 1997 is compatible with Maestro today, that is going to happen. Maestro is the only font included in Notepad and you can't switch to another.

 

If you used one of the available Finale fonts in '97, then one of the current Finale fonts should display properly in Finale 25. There are things that may need to be done to make it work but I have experience in this (also TAB files I did in 1997). If you used a 3rd party font back then, the best solution may be to print and scan.

 

MusicXML is probably not going to fix this since the problem, as you described it, means that .xml is working well.

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spencer doidge Posted
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The scan and print is fine doing the notes, which have not been a problem. I'm not aware that I was using any third party fonts, just the fingering notations with little numbers next to the notes and big Roman numerals above some of the lines. The little fingering numbers are gone. Some of the Roman numerals are preceded by "1/2" in the old Finale version. That "1/2" is replaced now by an omega, or something similar that looks like a horse shoe. I don't know. Maybe I was using some Microsoft font. The music notes are the least of my worries. I could recopy them manually quickly enough if I had to. It's the nitsy little fingering stuff that is the big time consumer. No music software supports classical guitar fingering notation properly if at all. Not mainstream enough, I guess. Oh well. I'll just make photocopies of my original printouts and forget about making any revisions.

To be regarded as truly professional level software, in my opinion, all Finale software should from the beginning have been designed to be more flexible and fully support third party fonts. To the degree that any music publishing software fails that test, it is less than it should be. As I see it, these are educational tools limited to a set of conventions that does not include all of what there is out there.

Thanks for your replies, folks.

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MIKE HALLORAN Posted
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But you're using NotePad, a six year old, free, entry-level product. The idea that it is not a professional program is absolutely correct—it's not. Finale 25 is.

 

Download the demo to Finale 25 and see if it doesn't read your tablature correctly. I did most of the charts I used for my students in 1997. They still open and display correctly. Here's the comparison chart. 

https://www.finalemusic.com/products/compare-finale-products/

 

If you own a license to F'97, it costs $149 to get 25 through MakeMusic. Resellers sometimes have better pricing if you shop around.

 

What is your time worth?

 

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