Peter, please remove your serial number!

Try copying the "locked" import into another new document.

This might be a SmartScan app question and not a Finale issue. Is it perhaps a demo version?

The SmartScan installation is bought and paid for, not a demo copy.  Someone please tell me how to remove the locks on all the staves; surely there is a way!

Without seeing the file, we can only guess. You can’t post files here, but you can put them on Dropbox or something similar, and post a link. We would like to see both the Finale file, and the XML.

I am not sure exactly what you mean. Finale system locks can be removed in Utilities>Unlock systems.

But you said ....

 in Finale, but cannot edit music file; staves are all locked against edit.

... I know of nothing in Finale that "locks" up editing completely. That's why I suggested it is a Smart Scan app problem and not Finale. Unless I misunderstood your question, that is.

Yes, and I found the answer myself.  Now I need to apply some "white-out" to the source PDF to remove the lyrics, so then I can replace them myself.  Staples will still have that ancient product.  SmartScore just cannot handle anything except raw music ... no text or anything else extraneous

Not quite true. SmartScore does handle text and lyrics, although not very well, IMO. That's why I do all of my recognition without them, and add them back in, in Finale.

Does your SmartScan (as opposed to SmartScore Pro 64, which Ernest and I use) give you the opportunity to do any pre-recognition editing, such as straightening crooked scans, deleting blotches, and generally correcting items that might lead to a bad result? Note that these are corrections made before the recognition process. You then can correct the recognized score, all before saving as an XML and importing an almost perfect result into Finale.

I agree.  Since I don't do this work professionally, I don't have the expensive Pro 64 product.  My scanning program does allow straightening, cropping, and other corrections to scanned material but not to the extent that you cite in Pro 64.  If I did more of this work for our volunteer choir, I probably ask for a copy of Pro 64 to be bought for me to use.  Right now that would be overkill.  Yes, "not very well" with text and lyrics is the hammer on the nail head.  I'm doing the same with white-out this afternoon.  I have to get this score into the tenor pitch range this afternoon (the pitch is too low to be comfortable), so I can practice the music and still get to rehearsal this evening.

Many thanks!

Kind Regards,

Peter Kurtz

Are you aware that, as a Finale owner, you can buy SmartScore 64 Pro at half price? Also, look at the limited versions. There might be one that would be suitable for you, without the major expense.

You do not need to buy whiteout and mark up your paper before a scan. Besides the technique that MikeR showed you, there are many utilities that can "whiteout" a pdf or other graphic file electronically. Although the only one I know off the top of my head is Preview built into the MacOS, there are many available for Windows as well including freeware and shareware. The trick is to mark up your file with markers the same color as your background (usually white). Easy peasy. Here are a couple of examples I just did in Preview, unmarked:

and marked:

Here is the 50% link for Finale owners that MikeR is referring to. It's hard to find on a search but Google took me to one of my old posts where I had entered this link:

https://www.musitek.com/store/Fin2SS64.html