When migrating a Finale file to other software such as Dorico via MusicXML, various issues may occur. From what we have researched so far, the following are possible issues, including the three issues pointed out in the instruction video released by Steinberg, the developer of Dorico, introduced in the previous article.
Changes in music layout: Problems with vertical spacing between systems may occur. ☆
Not transferring symbols: Many things are not imported: expressions, articulations, smart shapes, chord suffixes.
Not transferring Music styles: Some styles are not imported: single line, hidden staff, etc.
Changes in symbol import category: Some symbols are imported to unintended categories. ☆
Not transferring file information: File information in the Score Manager is not transferred as is. ☆
Changes in notation: Symbols may be reproduced in unintended ways, such as misaligned slurs.
Changes in music font: Kousaku and Chaconne cannot be used as global music fonts.
Changes in guitar tablature: Guitar tablature cannot express Japanese bends with standard functions.
☆: Issues pointed out in Steinberg's instruction video.
I would like to summarize the details of the problems and solutions for the issues that I think are particularly important in several articles.
1. Changes in music layout
- For normal style music
The layout issue seems to be a big problem in that it is a bit cumbersome to process. As Steinberg's instruction video points out, this is due to differences in product specifications: in Finale, headers and page numbers can be placed outside the page margin lines, while in Dorico, they are displayed inside.
The positional relationship between page margins and page numbers in Finale is usually as follows. The red arrows point to the four corners of the page margins, and the page numbers surrounded by red squares are placed outside the music area, that is, on the page margins.
Here is the same file imported into Dorico with MusicXML, and in this case, you can see that the page number is placed in the upper left corner of the second page, inside the music area.
If you want to return this to the same layout as when it was originally opened in Finale, first of all you need to reduce the page margins, which were wide vertically in Dorico after import, by about half to make more space for the music area in the center.
Then, create a new frame for the page number at the bottom of the music area, and if necessary, create a new frame for the header to display the song title, etc. at the top.
This process is done in the image below. The bottom edge of the actual music area is the point indicated by the blue arrows. In this example, a frame for inserting the page number is placed under the music area, and a blank frame is inserted as a spacer to adjust the distance between the two.
In addition, in the initial state of Dorico, the flow title is displayed under the title instead of the subtitle, so if necessary, you will need to reassemble the Finale-style frame in the page template yourself. This is explained in the Steinberg's instruction video.
In addition, in Sibelius, as in Finale, it is easy to place the page number beyond the music area within the page margin. In this case, the page number was placed slightly upwards just after importing, but in this case, you may be able to complete the correction by simply moving the page number without editing the page margin.
- If the score contains a lot of text
Many files can be modified to the Dorico-style layout using the above process, but it is troublesome for scores that use a lot of text-based expressions. In this case, the layout may be significantly disrupted possibly due to the automatic collision avoidance function that works for them.
Here is the original Finale file.
When you import it into Dorico as MusicXML, it looks like this.
In this case, you can repair the system layout by manipulating some parameters in the Layout Options dialog box.
In “Layout Options > Page Setup > Page Margins”, change the Top/Bottom and Left/Right margins to 7mm and 15mm respectively.
Change the two parameters in “Layout Options > Vertical Spacing > Minimum Gaps” to “-999”, or uncheck “Automatically resolve collisions between adjacent staves and systems”.
Change the two parameters in “Layout Options > Vertical Spacing > Vertical Justification” to “100”.
In “Layout Options > Staves and Systems > Casting Off”, set the number of measures per system to 4, the number of systems per frame to 6, and uncheck "Scale number of systems by frame height”.
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BTW this file was used to test the expressions, articulations, smart shapes, and chord suffixes import, and as you can see from the screenshot, there are many symbols that were not imported exactly as they were in the original Finale file.
This is another important topic, so I will go into it in more detail in the next article.
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