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Jpg files of musical notation

Is there a way to create a jpeg file of the music notation fron NWC?
I have heard someone mention that it is possible to set it up so that it think that my hard drive is a printer
and that I could then manipulate the graphic file ....
Anyone got any clue about this?
Dan

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #1 –
print it out and scan it in
OR
paste a copy (from the page preview window) into publisher & save as webpage
OR
maybe something else

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #2 –
You could try this.
Use the Copy button in the Print Preview this creates a WMF image on the clipboard.
Open a graphic program - Paint Shop Pro - excellent shareware or CorelDraw and paste the image.
If using PSP you will probably have to double the image size on import to get a reasonable resolution.
Then Save the image using a JPEG file format option.
But a Metafile converted to a raster image wont look as good as the original.
It depends on the destination of the file but a zipped Metafile is fairly compact if you intend to transmit over the net and retains the sharpness.

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #3 –
I would counsel strongly against using JPG as your graphics file format.
JPG works best with gradual changes in color or grey, not sharp boundaries. NWC music is black and white with sharp boundaries.
GIF or TIFF (each reduced to b/w) will give much better reproduction when "unpacked". Try each and see which gives the compression and picture quality when closed and reopened. If you need a graphics file format that is web readable, use GIF.

Andrew

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #4 –
I strongly recommend IrfanView, which is FREE. It seems to understand most graphic formats, and will convert between most pairs. It also support re-sizing, and has limited color and gamma tweaking (not relevant with black and white.
It has been written up in a number of magazines, and is avalible at:

http://stud1.tuwien.ac.at/~e9227474/

Cyril N. Alberga

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #5 –
Andrew is super right. the gif format is compresses far more efficiently than jpegs. also, gifs print much more clearly. see for yourself.

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #7 –
Ummm....ok . How can I save ANY kind of graphic file of music notation generated by NWC?
I tried copying and pasting into Lview pro. That doesn't work. I was able to paste into a frame
in WORD but I couldn't figure out any way to save it.

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #8 –
Paste it into PSP, then save it as *Any* format you like! :-)

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #10 –
In my expierience the images created by the 'copy' function in page preview produces images that are unusable. They're so full of jagged edges and distortions that a musician couldn't begin to read from them. Is there a way to improve this situation?

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #11 –
Lucas, I wonder what software you're pasting your image into?? I'll give yet another plug for Serif's Page Plus which gives excellent results. There are cut down trial versions around which will do the job for peanuts. Look at http://www.serif.com

Peter

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #13 –
Peter's right. Some programs (including Photoshop v3) will do a very poor render of the metafile (which is what NWC provides) into a bitmap because they render at the screen dot-density (normally 72 dpi).
Others are a little more careful, and will consider the stated dot-density of the bitmap (or "image") they are rendering to.

Andrew

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #14 –
This is all very much in the "rough" stages... but since
this topic has come up, let me "come out" and admit that
I've been looking into taking all this one step further - to
try and get the dynamic affect of "playing a song" on the
web. If you're curious, go to my home page
   http://www.net1plus.com/users/pammett/
and
click on "music" right there near the very top of the page.

More than anything, what I think my "experiment" shows is
that doing it "by hand" (as I did) is much too rough. What
we really need is for Nwc itself to output the animated .gif
so that it's smoother and more professional. How big the
.gif gets is simply a function of how big a "screen" size
you want and how often you want to take the snapshots.

Maybe there's another way to get the shapshots taken
automagically. I did it with Alt-PrintScreen (on Win 95)
and then I pasted each image into a .gif with LView Pro
and then I used GifAnimator to put together the sequence.

Anyone got a better idea of how to automate this ?
-Kevin
================================================
| work : KPammett@PlanetDirect.com (978) 684-3571
| home phone/Groton: (978) 448-9088
| email "for life" : Kevin_Gene_Pammett@Bigfoot.com

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #15 –
I wonder if RealVideo or one of those things can "read" the screen whilst the music is playing?

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #16 –
I guess that Lotus ScreenCam Recorder can record both screen and sound. And your comments if any :-)
But all this takes space, and I dunno if ScreenCam redaer is free. Nor for any platforms.

MAD

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #17 –
If you paste the metafile into publisher 97 and output as a website, you get a gif file. If you customise the size of the page, you can get any size gif you want, e.g 2000 wide, etc. If you use Publisher 97, I assume you have a fast computer.

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #18 –
send icons

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #19 –
There is a separate thread of messages regarding how to make GIF, JPG, and so forth, from NWC files. The recent activity has been within the last month or so. Look in the archives.

As the above users pointed out, you can (1) In NWC, using Print Preview, make a placeable Windows metafile, then open the metafile in a program that can do it. If you happen to own a hot-shot drawing program (Illustrator, Corel Draw, etc.) try it. If not, try Irfan View (free and opens nearly anything). The drawing programs retain maximum resolution of the metafile (because a metafile is a drawn object, not a bitmap). In any case, the metafile is too big in pixel dimensions, and will need to be scaled down before saving as GIF or JPG or whatever.

(2) Get Ghostscript and Ghostview. These free programs can open a Postscript file and "print" it to a PDF file, or a bitmap, or JPG. From bitmap or JPG you can re-convert to GIF using (for example) Irfan view. To use Ghostcript and Ghostview, you will need to create a virtual "printer" that creates a file on disk in Postscript format. One way to do this is to install one from your Windows CD-ROM (nearly any "PS" printer will do). There may be tricks involved, and perhpas one of the regular Ghostscript/Ghostview users can advise you better (I use commercial software from Adobe).

(3) From reading other replies, it seems that printing your NWC document then scanning it at 72 DPI is the easiest, if you have a scanner. If the software accompanying your scanner won't directly make a GIF or JPG for you, get Irfan View.

Once again, I point out that NWC owrks something like a drawing (vector) program, whereas GIF and JPG are bitmap images.

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #20 –
NWC to JPEG

This is in regard to the JPEG, GIF, and TIFF issue. I have found that using a "screen capture tool" works really good. I find this alot easier than using postscript and adobe stuff. As mentioned about Irfan View is a fairly good and "free" product for image manipulation/viewing. Hope this helps...if not oh well.

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #21 –
I recently discovered that a program that I have had for a while will also help here.  One of my scanners came with a copy of something called PaperPort.  It added itself to the list of "printer" (along with a fax program and a few other odds and ends), but I never payed any attention.

Turns out that if you select it as the printer the output is converted to a graphic and can be saved from the PaperPort window.  This is a bit-map, not a vector, graphic.

Question, are there any freeware programs out there that will do the same?

CNA

Re: Jpg files of musical notation

Reply #22 –
If you create a placeable WMF from NWC print preview, it can be opened as a bitmpa image in the free "Irfan View." But... Irfan View seems to be inconsistent in its handling of WMFs. Somne verssion do a fantastic job, others mishandle the scaling.

If you have the capability to create PDF files (say, useing Ghostscript), you can open the PDF in GSview and export a variety of graphic image types.

You may be able to place a WMF into a program, such as a word processing document, that can then be exported as HTML with automatic conversion of the WMF to GIF. But you might not like the resolution.

If you create PDF and open it in Acrobat Reader, you can turn off smoothing, go to moderately high magnification (not too much, or you'll choke memory), use the image copy tool, select all, copy. The copied image is now in the clipboard, and can be pasted into Irfan View. From there, it can be re-scaled, and exported in a variety of bitmap formats.