Hi -- I think you're right that LilyPond (.ly) files aren't good for long-term archival, since LilyPond syntax changes so rapidly.
Myriad (in France) has released a program called PDFtoMusic Pro that purportedly will convert a PDF file to MusicXML or to MIDI. Presumably the PDF file cannot be a scanned image; I think it has to be laid out in a music font. You can read about it at http://www.myriadonline.com/en/products/pdftomusicpro.htm Caveats: -- It's very expensive (U.S. $199). -- Does it really work? -- It is probable that in extracting the musical information, it might not extract the note-spacing information, in which case you would not really be extracting the *layout*, which I am sure is what you want to do. So this program is probably not what you want, but I mention it because you may not have heard of it and you still might want to look at all available options. Probably there are other LilyPond users that will have better suggestions. -- Tom ********************************************************** Jason Merrill wrote: I'm wondering to what extent lilypond files can be considered "archival," and if there is a good workflow for producing archival documents using lilypond. By this, I mean that now that I've taken the effort of copying a score into the computer, I'd like to save everyone in the future from making the same effort, and also allow them easiest access to a form of the score that provides them the greatest possible utility. PDF files are certainly good for looking at and printing, and practically everyone is set up to use them. However, you can't really edit them directly. Providing access to the .ly file also seems pretty good. It's "easy" to edit, and open source so there's no vendor lock in and all that. The problem is that I'm not sure I could convince some of my less technically oriented friends to use lilypond. Even after I tell them how much faster it is for me to type stuff in than it is to mess around with a mouse and finale, and how it's free and how I love it, I have a feeling the first time they see a compiler error because of a misplaced comma they are going to give up. This isn't a criticism of lilypond exactly--lilypond is aimed at a particular group of users and I think it serves them extremely well. Nonetheless, its steep learning curve makes me wary of considering it archival. So what other choices are there? Proprietary formats are out of the question because they're, well, proprietary. That pretty much leaves MusicXML, as far as I know, which benefits from being readable by any program my less technically oriented friends are likely to use. As far as I can tell, however, there's no way to get lilypond files into MusicXML format. Say in a few years some program that is vastly superior to lilypond comes along, and it's so good that no one wants to use lilypond anymore. Unless I can get my lilypond files into that new program, they're not so useful anymore. It seems more likely that this hypothetical new system will allow me to import MusicXML than to import .ly files. Is there any work being done on a system that allows lilypond to compile to MusicXML (or some other good technology I don't know about) instead of PDF ? From what I understand, the makers of Lilypond don't think very highly of MusicXML. I'd appreciate any thoughts on this problem. Am I wrong in thinking that lilypond files aren't really archival? Is there some solution I haven't thought of? Regards, Jason Merrill _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list lilypond-user@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user
