I’ve used Sibelius and Finale before moving to Dorico, when Finale offered the crosstrade. I am Extremely Happy with Dorico (Currently using Version 6.2.10.6140 (Mar 272026)Dorico 6 AudioEngine Version 6.1.0.13). However, the XML import is very poor. The same files that imports very close to the original in one of the previously mentioned program is useless when imported to Dorico.
Looking through the archives I see this problem is longstanding. My motivation is not to criticize but to request that a great effort be made to solve this issue asap. It is important to be able to have a medium to exchange files with colleagues who use other notation programs, without having to enter the entire score manually.
What will greatly assist the developers is for you to post here a relevant musicxml file along with some details about where in the file the problems happened, what you expected and what you actually got, etc. Too much detail is usually better than not enough. If describing something is awkward and/or needlessly verbose, include some screenshots. If one knows where to look and what to look for, it saves time and really does assist in addressing such problems.
If you prefer not to post the files in this (public) forum, you can send them privately to @dspreadbury or @Richard_Lanyon. In the following email addresses replace the words dot and at with the expected email address symbols:
d dot spreadbury at steinberg dot de and
r dot lanyon at steinberg dot de
I agree with your comment. However, I have noticed that the presence of a standard does not mean it will be followed. Companies tend to break the rules when they think they have a better way! Anyone who has “hand coded” a website has had to deal with how a variety of browsers handle “standard” tags differently. Then you have the problem of the standard changing over time as tags are added and sometimes dropped. (I’m not pointing a finger at Dorico, Sibelius, or Finale — just pointing out a reality.) If you can give a concrete example or two (as @StevenJones01 suggested) at a time, maybe the team can improve communication between these import–export dysfunctions!
If you cannot share even a portion of the scores that does not import correctly in Dorico, perhaps you could be much more specific in identifying the issue? Finale was one of the first, as I recall (and, I could be incorrect), to embrace the full implementation of musicXML.
I have absolutely zero issues importing into Dorico my old Finale files saved to that format. I suspect (and, again, I could be wrong) that different notation applications may use different less-than-full implementations of musicXML or different versions of the standard.
Try importing as regular XML instead of musicXML. When Dorico was brand new and I was importing Finale files to practice on in Dorico, I recall that regular XML worked better than musicXML.
If you have access to the original file in the original program, maybe you could reduce it to one or a few bars, on one or two staves showing the problem. Changing the pitches might obfuscate where it originated enough ?
Can you define “useless”? What particularly goes wrong – types of notation, note durations..?
I usually find that Dorico does pretty well from Finale files; but even where it is deficient, you should get 95% of the data or thereabouts. One point of concern is that text dynamics (eg. cresc., dim.) come in as text, even when the XML defines them as dynamics (though Finale’s output defines them as text).
Other problems occur when the notation data is “bad”, e.g. if the bar contains more notes than the metre allows.
Also, in Finale, if you use a “display” time signature, then the XML makes every barline a new time signature. But this is pretty easy to fix in Dorico.
You may find that “rinsing” the XML through another notation app (e.g. importing it and exporting it) may improve the XML in Dorico’s eyes.
Are you sure there’s a difference in the actual data? The non-generic file type is zipped up, and can include data for part layouts, but the actual XML is the same.
I know the info is the same; only the compression is different IIRC. But I know that when I was originally importing XML into Dorico (in 2016?), I had better luck with basic XML than with some of the music formats.
How long ought it to take to export to compressed xml a Finale 27 file of 1893 bars, 410 systems, 315 pages and 17,934 ‘active frames’? At first attempt it took so long I assumed it had failed; but then I tried again and it took around 30 minutes without linked parts. Is that normal?