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Topic: Finale to Noteworthy (Read 22605 times) previous topic - next topic

Finale to Noteworthy

I use NWC and I have a friend that can send some music in a Finale file.  Is it possible to import a Finale file into NWC?

Thanks for the help!
Barbara

Re: Finale to Noteworthy

Reply #1 –
Finale and NWC are not compatible, so you can't import a Finale file.  However, there may be a workaround.  If the Finale user can export to Midi, you can import the Midi file - it will require a fair amount of editing if it has triplets to make it presentable visually, but you can at least play it back readily.

If the Finale user prints out a high quality score, then you can scan that using Sharpeye, fix up the inevitable errors, and export that to XML, then convert that to NWC with a XML2NWC utility.  So far I've found Sharpeye and the converter work pretty well. 

If the Finale user can export to XML, you can use a XML2NWC utility to bring the file into NWC.  I don't know if Finale has the capability to do XML.


Re: Finale to Noteworthy

Reply #2 –
Thank you so very much for the help!!!!

Barbara

Re: Finale to Noteworthy

Reply #3 –
You're welcome, Barb.  I just did a bit more checking.  Apparently recent versions of Finale will export to XML.

The converter, developed by Nicolas Hatier, can be found here:

http://www.niversoft.com/downloads/mxml2nwcc.zip

This converter takes an XML file and converts it to NWC.  There's apparently another one to convert the other way.  See the discussions at
http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/nwcforum/2525.htm?rcnt=30

and https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=2204





Re: Finale to Noteworthy

Reply #4 –
I just discovered another way. 

Finale allows each page to be exported as an image.  If you export from Finale in TIFF format, you can then

  • open the TIFF image in Sharpeye, 
  • use Sharpeye to convert the image to notation, 
  • export the Sharpeye file in XML format. 

The MXML2NWC utility can then be used to import the file into NWC where you can massage it to your heart's content.

Cumbersome and complicated, but workable, I think.  I'm going to try a big band score today, and I'll report back about how long it takes, etc.

Re: Finale to Noteworthy

Reply #5 –
Reporting back:

It took roughly half an hour to follow the steps below for a 27 page score (336 measures) for 18 instruments, full jazz band using a 600 dpi resolution for the TIFF files.  A 300 dpi resolution didn't work well.  The time-consuming part was the batch processing in Sharpeye, where it took close to a minute to convert each page.

There are about 700 rhythm errors in Sharpeye to correct, largely because single-measure repeat signs aren't recognized by the program.  I decided to correct these in Noteworthy because it will be easier and more efficient, but if there were fewer, I'd have done it in Sharpeye.