Introduction

March 2011

PDFtoMusic is a groundbreaking and unique program that converts Adobe PDF music sheets into editable music scores.
From an Adobe PDF file created by any music notation program, PDFtoMusic can play the piece, sing the lyrics and export this piece to miscellaneous file formats: MIDI, Myr, BMP, WAV, AIFF and MusicXML for the Pro version.

What can I use it for?
How does PDFtoMusic work?
What are the differences between the "Pro" and "Standard" version?

What can I use it for?

Usages for PDFtoMusic are numerous. First, on the Internet, many dedicated sites provide large collections of free musical PDF files.
PDFtoMusic will let you play them, or convert them into a music file format that you'll be able to modify by using your usual music notation software.
Thus, PDFtoMusic gives you access to a wide library of public domain score sheets that you can play or edit.

Also, there are many music notation programs, and only a few manage compatible exchange file formats. PDFtoMusic solves this issue. You just have, from your program, to generate a PDF file (see next chapter), read it with PDFtoMusic and convert it into format that can be read by another application, for instance, Myr or MIDI format (or MusicXML for the Pro version).

PDFtoMusic becomes then a bridge between your miscellaneous music programs.

For instance: your choir master only uses "Music Architect 2000", that can only save files in its own, proprietary format. You just have to ask him for a PDF file for the score, and by using PDFtoMusic, you'll get a score that can be edited in Harmony Assistant.

If you own the Pro version of PDFtoMusic, you can also export into MusicXML exchange format, from Recordare. The Music XML file format is currently supported by a number of notation applications, including Finale and Sibelius.

How does PDFtoMusic work?

PDFtoMusic analyzes the content of Adobe PDF files. It collects all the graphical information that it can process: fonts, lines, miscellaneous graphic objects. From these graphical items, PDFtoMusic will infer the music score to be played.

Note : some PDF files (albeit rare) embed only a single picture for the whole score, instead of a collection of simple graphic objects. This kind of PDF file has probably been generated from a scanned paper sheet. PDFtoMusic can't extract and process elementary graphical items in such cases, and reports that such a document cannot be processed.

To convert a PDF file, select "File>Open" in PDFtoMusic and select a PDF file on your hard drive. PDFtoMusic will load it, and start automatically to process and display it.
If PDFtoMusic makes a mistake while processing the document, you will be able to fix this mistake manually. It is described in the corrections section of this manual.

PDFtoMusic can export the result automatically each time a PDF file is processed, and open this result in the program of your choice.

What are the differences between the "Pro" and "Standard" version?

The "Pro version" includes options and features that are not present in the "Standard" version:

- Batch file export, to convert in only one operation all PDF files from a folder and its subfolders.
- "Expert" mode to manually override individual default processing settings in order to have more precise control.
- Export in MusicXML format in order to preserve the score sheet layout when importing into one of the numerous programs that support this format.