I have Windows 10, Finale Printmusic 2010 and 2014. I want to convert .TIF to >XML files. 2014 doesn't seem to do it, unless I am missing something. I used to be able to do it with 2010, but now when I click on "Convert" I get message "
xml setup error: string index out of range: -1". Any help with either question would be much appreciated.
Fred, does that happen with all documents? Has it worked for you in the past?
Are you scanning from directly within Finale?
I would also point out that PM2010 is 7 years old, and no longer supported, and was not designed with Windows 10 in mind. Why not download the demo of PM2014 while it's still available, and see if it works for you. 2014 will still allow scanning. If you wait until they upgrade it, scanning has been removed from the F25 series.
https://www.finalemusic.com/products/finale-printmusic/
Just as a purely personal aside, I wonder why people think that a program will continue to function well with an operating system that was released 5 years after the program...
Hi Mike thanks for the comments. Yes, I am scanning directly from Finale. Do you think that changing to a new Epson Printer/Scanner
might have caused this problem? I have not had any issues with normal scanning outside of the Finale platform. I get what you said about
the product being obsolete.... however, if scanning has been removed from the F25 series, then if I get PM2014 I will be purchasing an
old product soon to be not supported also. So it sounds like I can't just go to a setting on my Finale and change the string setting and correct the problem..... so I assume that this is a generic error message.
Can't understand why they are removing scanning from Finale... that's 100% of my usage.... transposing music.
Take care, we are drying out down here in Texas..... Fred Mills
I doubt that the new scanner is the problem.
Since scanning is so important to you, I would recommend you (1) upgrade Finale and (2) upgrade to SmartScore Pro. As a PM user, you qualify for a 50% discount on the program. You will have to go through a learning curve, but once you have a handle on the program, and especially the shortcuts, you will be amazed at the time savings over the old way. I have used the Pro version of SmartScore for well over 100 complicated vocal scores, and can't say enough good things about it.
Upgrding to the full Finale will also let you take advantage of plug-ins, another great set of time and effort savers. All in all, if you can make the necessary financial input, and take the time to learn both programs, you will never look back!
>I notice that the downloadable demo of Smartscore Pro is fully functional if Fred wanted to give it a trial run.<
Exactly. Smartscore X2 Pro will convert .pdf or .tif to MusicXML. It's $199 in the MakeMusic Store. Unlike SmartScore Lite, it handles lyrics, expressions and is far more accurate. There's a learning curve but it works pretty well.
https://store.makemusic.com/Store/ Go to the Recommended Products tab and scroll down.
Download the demo for the Professional edition here:
http://www.musitek.com/demos.html
Musitek has another product, Music-To-XML for $99.95 but you can't edit before exporting and it can't handle .tif and other file types. No demo.
There are good reasons to upgrade to PrintMusic 2014 but hoping that SmartScore Lite will finally work the way you want in Win 10 isn't one of them. I do not know how good MusicXML import is in PM 2010 but it's pretty good in 2014.
Hi Mike,
I have exactly the same error message as Fred - XML setup error: string index out of range and a blank page with the lines and staff. I have PrintMusic 2011 running on Windows 8.1. I have also tried scanning to tiff separately as per the manual and then trying the recognition function in SmartScore Lite. Apart from promoting upgrade to Finale, SmartScore Pro and other products, do you know of a solution to this problem please?
There may not be one. Both PM 2011 and Windows 8 are a little outdated.
If you want to send me your TIFF, I'll run it and see if the results are any better. Send it to wawoodman at aol dot com.
Neither Mike H, Adrian, or I, have any interest in promoting upgrades. We are not MM employees, nor do we get any kind of reward. We are just trying to suggest a solution to using products that are pretty much over the hill.
>Neither Mike H, Adrian, or I, have any interest in promoting upgrades...<
True that.
It would be nice if this board could be organized by category, in this case, Scanning. Then we could just make a sticky and point to it when these questions arise so people could get the answers more quickly. The official blog posts on this leave a whole lot to be desired.
If SS Lite supported .xml output... but it doesn't...
Here's a comparison chart. I do not recommend Songbook Edition and believe that, if you are only going to spend the $99, you might be better off spending it on Music-to-XML instead per my earlier post. X2 Pro is better, though.
http://www.musitek.com/SSLiteUpgrade.html
To clarify, all Finale owners can purchase SS X2 Pro through MakeMusic for $199.
SmartScore Lite owners can also upgrade to X2 Pro ($199) or Songbook Edition ($99) directly through Musitek.
Music-to-XML is purchased online through the Apple App/Windows/Android Store for $99.99 — this does not require ownership of any MakeMusic product.
Mike,
I have to disagree with you. Any of the products that don’t allow editing are, IMNSHO, are worthless. If all you want to do is piano with vocal, the Songbook edition is fine. Otherwise, go to the full version. The extra cost will be forgotten long before the cursing at horrible scan results stops.
We don’t really disagree. The $199 SmartScore X2 Pro is the only version to have, IMO. Music-to-XML requires all editing to be done in Finale after the fact. Uhhhhh yea... sometimes faster to input manually.
Before deciding to “save” $99.01, one should always ask, “What is my time worth?”
What’s really bad are those that promise .pdf scans into notation — then you read the fine print. They only work on .pdf files exported from notation apps that leave the font information intact (and only if they can read the fonts). No scanning ability nor can they read aa actual scan. Some cost as much as SS X2 P!
Mike and Mike, many thanks for your help. Apologies for implying that you might be biased. Neither of my friends that also have PrintMusic (one 2011 and one 2014) can get scanning to work either (different PCs, different OS, different scanners) and they are both smart people.
Your point about "what is my time worth?" is well made. I am a Software Engineer so I should know better - I want to spend my time doing music not bug fixing, so I'll try out SmartScore X2 Pro as a standalone tool. It will be worth it as I have many pages of score to capture.
Thanks for the recommendations.
Sure. I have no idea if SS X2 Pro will scan directly on a Windows machine since I've never installed it onto mine. If not, there are other ways.
On the Mac, scanning directly into SmartScore (any version) hasn't worked since OS 10.5 on the PowerPC (ok, there was a kluge in 10.6). Instead, you scan to the Mac and then X2 imports and reads that scan. You export to Finale or MusicXML (among the choices) after you edit and fix.
Unlike Lite, X2 reads lyrics and many expressions. Some scans will be more successful than others in this regard. YMMV
Robin,
It's not the scanning that's the issue. There are any number of ways to scan the music, whether directly into SmartScore in Windows, or via Mac's Image Capture, or PDF Scanner, or any other program. It's the scan preparation and recognition that makes the difference, and here is where the difference shows up.
After you scan, before you run the recognition process, you have the chance to graphically fix things. In SmartScore's Image Editor, you can deskew and crop the image. You can add missing group barlines that might have been cut off. You can delete blocks of text, or even entire staves that you might not want.
When you recognize a scan in SmartScore, you will almost certainly see errors. Triplets may be miscounted. There may be hidden rests, where a second layer starts or ends mid-measure. A tempo indicator might be picked up as a note. All of these lead to duration errors, where a measure would be picked up as having too many or too few beats. In the full SmartScore products, these measures are clearly indicated, by a color change. You have the opportunity to edit the mistakes in recognition, deleting and inserting notes, marking triplets, adding rests. Also, since the original score and the recognized score are shown in separate windows, one above the other, proofreading is very quick and easy. Your eye will automatically pick up a lot of things. All this pays off: when you have the score edited, you are then exporting an almost perfect XML, which you open in Finale or PM.
When you use the Lite version of the product, it's a black box: your score goes in one end, and an XML is exported, errors and all. And so Finale gets all the mistakes, and tries to make sense of them. You have to find the errors, identify the cause - missing triplet? extra rests? - wrong time signature? - and fix them.
Don't think it's a walk in the park. SmartScore Pro is a complex program, with its own learning curve. There are videos, and a helpful forum, but you will spend time learning how to use it. In the end, though, I guarantee you will be saving time.
I recall when I first started using the original version of Finale. After a while I went back to my former program; Finale (especially at the start) was just too complicated. But then I thought, all I need to do is learn to use Finale well enough to match the results my other (more primitive) program produced; then anything more was gravy.
I think moving to SmartScore Pro would be similar. If all one can do is learn enough to match the Lite version, that may be good enough to start. Then, as one uses it more, one can improve one's workflow little by little until one masters it.
I had the "xml setup error: string index out of range: -1" problem and found the fix on another forum. I didn't believe it would, but it works. You have to set up PrintMusic to run as an administrator. Right click on the PrintMusic.exe file and select Properties, then select the Compatibility tab and check the "Run this program as an administrator" checkbox and click OK.
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