… to convert pages to XML file; I downloaded a utility to process that command …

There are several XML formats.

Finale needs the MusicXML format

What utility did you use?

Yes, I noticed that as well, though in the drop-down list of file types, beside the "musicxml" file, it also did show "XML". THought taht would be acceptable.

Well, I was only able to convert to straight "XML". Guess that's not going to work.

"OnlineConvertFree" was the program.

I need to find a program that can take pdf into musicXML.

Please recommend one if you know one - Thanks

Thanks, Michael

Do you want it fast, not too expensive, and probably error filled, or do you want to spend some money, learn another program, and get it right?

If the first, take a look online. There are even apps that will work from a picture on your phone. Search <music to XML>

If you have a lot of them, and want to work a lot more efficiently, SmartScore64 Pro is what I use. There are other scanning programs, but make sure that they allow editing of the scanned score, before you create the XML to send to Finale. I have done many hundreds of scores this way.

There is MusicXML with the .musicxml suffix that is version 3.1 and MusicXML with the .xml suffix that is v. 3.0 or older. Since 25.4, Finale can import and export both types of MusicXML. The Help files are your friend and you should read up on that. (This gets confusing when you learn that there are other types of xml files that use the same .xml suffix but have nothing to do with MusicXML. Fun, yes?)

Ok, there are some utilities that take a picture of your page using a scanner or smart phone(!) and use some mystical, magical, black box, mumbo-jumbo to turn that picture into a .xml type MusicXML file. Music to XML is one of the better known apps for $99. You edit the results in Finale — not half as much fun as it sounds. They say, astonishing! — uh… not my word for it.

https://www.musitek.com/m2xml.html 

Then there are actual scanning apps that let you edit the scan before exporting as .xml. SmartScore is one and offers a discount to Finale owners or an upgrade from Music to XML.

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

ScanScore is another

https://scan-score.com/en/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwhb36BRCfARIsAKcXh6H9A9XeT1Rpf1IEEjuuq8Drx9VqGTD8ebm1v3ZU8j-Uj5KvXMMdhAcaAi5kEALw_wcB 

PhotoScore is often bundled with Sibelius. 

https://www.neuratron.com/downloads.asp 

Thanks greatly for all that information, Mike.

Well, I did try out the ScanScore program; results were hopelessly unusable though.

I may try the Musitek program (I see lots of bad review) but I always try to give something a shot, and find out for myself. Cost is not an issue, I'm willing to spend whatever is needed to accomplish the process.

Saw another app "PlayScore 2" may explore that one too.

Thanks again, Michael

SmartScore 64 has been nearly flawless for me with notes. Lyrics—uh… not so great. Having a tabloid scanner and aligning the image first in Acrobat helps to get better recognition.

There is at least one app out there that, instead of using OCR, it extracts the font information from .pdf files. Although these guys claim near perfection, the fact is that it only works on scores exported to .pdf and imported into the app. It’s totally useless with scans which are pictures of pages and don’t contain font information. 

Please do let us know what works best for you. 

Mike H: have you tried aligning pages in SmartScore’s Image Editor? Best thing since sliced bread! And I don’t even try to recognize text or lyrics. That way lies madness.

Michael O’B: send me one of your scores. My email is encoded in my signature. I’ll run it through SS64, and see how it works.

Too many Mikes on this forum. How many born late 40s, early 50s? Me and H, I know!

Mike, Thanks greatly for the offer to look over some score samples, and run it through SS64!.

So sorry for the delay in responding ... well, it's been so frantic up here in the Bay Area (Sonoma County) with all the imminent evacuations and other issues.

Well, this "Mike" here, yeah I'm from early 50's.

Well, so attached are just two pages from my Fugue #58 in C# minor .. page #1 and page #9, since they have such a different musical layout.

So, yeah, years ago I had that program "PrintMusic" ... and put a lot of my material into file drawers with printouts from the program. But now I have the full Finale version. I am unable so far, to locate some of my actual original PrintMusic files (hiding on any one of the 9 or 10 other harddrives I have around here on older dysfunctional computers ...?).

So my thought was to scan the pdf's of some of my works (almost 100 fugues - over an entire file drawer) and it should theoretically just convert to an XML file, and the into Finale ...?

But I send these two pages ,,, didn't want to send the whole fugue, it's 20 pages.

However, in the meantime, I DID reconstruct this work from the midi file .. I have all of them, of course. But I wanted to send these two pages, and see if you're able to perform a conversion.

Well, good luck, let me know.

Michael

Michael O sent me PDFs of two pages of organ music. One recognized with a single error. The other had more to fix, but sill, under 5 minutes to correct. Definitely a win to SmartScore64.

And remember, if the files are already in PDF format, no need to scan. Just go directly to SS.

>Well, this "Mike" here, yeah I'm from early 50's.<

Perhaps we should form a club.

>But now I have the full Finale version. I am unable so far, to locate some of my actual original PrintMusic files (hiding on any one of the 9 or 10 other harddrives I have around here on older dysfunctional computers ...?).<

If you can get into those drives, let them index. Now scan for .mus or .musx (PM 2012 or later). Open from within Finale. Once successful, you can go into the Get Info on one file  and specify that the current build of Finale is the default app to open all of these.

There is an issue that .mus was used by many notation apps — those will not open in Finale, of course.

By default Finale has always saved its data files to the Folder "Finale Files" in the Documents Folder (in Windows). Not sure if PrintMusic used the same or a similar folder structure. Unless the OP changed the default, that should be the first place I would look.

Thanks, oh but my problem is that my previous version(s) of PM, not to mention Finale, have resided at different times on different computers ... I have a small "graveyard" of old units .. Windows Vista ... Windows 7 ... "8" ... even a couple of old XP's ,, several more; some of my stuff is scattered among older gear; have not wanted to to unearth those harddrives ... like taking a John Deere Backhow to an old abandoned parking lot. Mike Rosen's demonstration of SS64 was impressive.

Ok, finally checking back in.

Yes, bought the SmartScore 64 Songbook Edition.

Quite amazing program.

a couple of observations to share:

I will encounter a few quirky "recognition' errors when I load in one of my PrintMusic files that have the staff systems too crowded too closely together. (Mine did). Which makes sense, since the program needs to differentiate the systems; and I was cramming too much together onto a page in the past with PM.

It properly interpreted clef changes really well, that impressed me.

I sent a 13-page 3-staff composition over, and it did amazingly accurate. The resulting MusicXML document was very close. I did however, see the page formatting inside Finale was a little more manageable if I copied the entire file, and pasted into a Finale "Default Document", which allowed me to have a little more editing flexibility.

I'm exploring if SS64 can read my manuscripts at all ... tried a few pages, well, my original pages are pretty sloppy appearance-wise, so it did not work; I'm confident the program can "read" any manuscript page I submit, if I clean up the penmanship and orderliness.

All in all, it's a great addition to my work to have it. Thanks for the recommendation.

Michael

None of the scanning programs read manuscript reliably, no matter how neatly done. I bring my eft files into Finale with Edit > Import XML, and then copy and paste into my template.

>None of the scanning programs read manuscript reliably, no matter how neatly done.<

or how loudly the marketing departments scream otherwise.