I have a friend who was a professional jazz choir director for a number of years, and who now painfully admits that she wrote all of her charts in Finale because she didn’t want the hassle of switching to a new platform and could accomplish (often with some degree of difficulty) everything she needed in her space-of-effort. She thought she had retired several years ago, but now has a chance to lead new group based on recordings of some of her old groups (and her charts). She asked me if I thought going to Sibelius was a viable option (which, or course, means she hasn’t written any charts in the past 5+ years) and I, of course, told her to not even consider that path, but to move to Dorico – full stop.
So my question is: are there any paths (probably multi-step) from 2001 Finale .mus files to .dorico files?
If your friend buys the Finale to Dorico crossgrade (through her MakeMusic account), then she will also get access to the latest version of Finale 27. I think she should open her old files in Finale 27 (optionally saving in the newer .musx format) and then export them to MusicXML for import into Dorico.
And if she has kept PDFs of her arrangements, some of them–the ones she may not need to rearrange–may be usable as is. (And making PDFs is always a wise way of additionally backing up just in case.)
Yes, I would certainly recommend making PDFs of all her Finale work and using those as final good masters. And of course, Finale will continue to work for the time being.
So I’d agree: get the Dorico crossgrade from MakeMusic, which comes with Finale 27.
Importing documents can require a bit of tidying up; and she will need to spend time learning how Dorico works.
Much ink has been spilt on this subject, of course…
Thanks to all. It turns out that she has BOTH Finale and Sibelius files that she wants to migrate into Dorico. She no longer has a valid Sibelius license. Is there a path forward for those in that situation? (I have some old Sibelius files which – at least so far – I haven’t needed to use in a Dorico context. However, I stopped Sibleius cold turket when Dorico came out so my Sibelius license is long-gone. So the answer I give my friend regarding her Sibelius files would also apply to me should I need to access those files at some point in the future. NOTE: I do have PDFs but would prefer not to have to transcribe them in note-by-note unless there are no other paths for importing.)
Agree. One can batch convert files to musicXML in Finale (may require a script but I don’t truly recall since it’s been a while). I batch converted probably 350 files in minutes so it’s a fairly efficient process.
I just spent a half-hour with her on the phone>. It turns our that she has both Finale and Sibelius applications (Sibelius with an active license and Finale with an inactive one), and, having downloaded the Free Trial version of Dorico, seen that musicxml files from Sib open with no probelm in Dorico.
Her main problem at this point is that her Finale files (.mus) were created in Allegro Finale 2001 on a Windows machine. (She now works only on Mac). So she needs to visit MakeMusic and figure out the specific steps (and cost) of upgrading her Allegro Final 2001 Windows app to Finale 27 (is platform important?) so she can export her files as musicxml files for Dorico to open. Anybody have experience with that pathway?
I suspect that she will need to log in to MakeMusic to see what is under My Account → My Software. If her account remains active, she might just have a license that will allow her to download the v27 upgrade but that’s a long shot since her version is so, so old.
There is online evidence that v26 opened 2001 Finale files but I haven’t found anything about v27 but I suspect it will. It doesn’t really matter on what machine the 2001 files were created because a Mac can generally read Windows documents (not programs/apps) without issue. So a valid Mac Finale installation should be able to open those files if v27 will indeed support files that old.
So, I would attempt to access my MakeMusic account. If that doesn’t work, requesting a Mac (or Windows if machine still available) Finale 2003 or later upgrade should work if she can convince them to give or to sell it to her. Finale fully implemented musicXML in v2003.
One other option: find a colleague or friend who still has a licensed copy of Finale (v2003 or newer) and ask them to help out and convert the files. Giving the other party access to a cloud directory (iCloud, Google Drive, Drop Box, etc.) with the files would make it fairly easy to download, convert to musicXML then upload back to that cloud directory.
Now, a good friend or colleague would do this at no charge because later versions of Finale would allow a batch process for all, or large groups of, files. And a really good friend or colleague would also print these files to PDFs.
I still have v27 active on my Macbook under macOS 26.3.1 and it appears to be functional as I just opened it. I would be happy to test convert one of her files if she would like. Let me know. Best of luck!
I have been (slowly) converting old Finale (Mac) files to Dorico. The MusicXML export is the way to go, those convert fairly reliably. However, older Finale files (older than 2001) are problematic. Some don’t have the Finale suffix (.mus, later .musx) and those must be added (Get info, append them). I was a Finale user since 1997 and some of those files are showing up as .exe files and I am sometimes unable to open them at all.
I have an old G4 Mac with Sibelius Ultimate running on it and I am also in the process of converting those files over via sneaker net. Same process, export as Music XML.
As I indicated above, if she buys the Dorico crossgrade through her MakeMusic account, she will also get Finale 27. There is no way to get Finale 27 directly.
I still have a bunch of Finale 2001 files, many of which don’t have .mus extensions and show up as “Unix Executable Files” due to having been rescued from a floppy disk, and they all open fine in Finale 27, for whatever that’s worth.
I can download v27 of Finale but I cannot find an option to purchase any other versions. The only items available for purchase on the MakeMusic Finale account are the Garritan sound libraries. Nevertheless and if needed, I’m happy to assist with the batch conversion if it is helpful. Oh, and the batch process to convert files to musicXML is available through the Finale v27 (and probably every version back to 2003) script editor as a selectable choice.
That sounds like the perfect solution since my friend has successfully downloaded a free 30-day version of Finale27. I haven’t a clue about how to write a Finale script. Does someone have one that works (or at least a template to build one)?
Very interesting. My friend is not at all technical. I had asked her to send me her Finale login info so I could dig around a bit. A few hours later she sent me an email saying that she had gotten a free 30-day download of Finale27. I’m pretty sure it must have been a pretty straightforward process given her reluctance to dig too deeply into anything resembling crawling around in the infrastructure.
Anyway, at this point, I’m searching for a batch processing script for converting old Finale files to MusicXML format.
Just found a video online that says that finale 27 has a Translate folder command under the file menu that will do batch conversions of finale files to music XML. I’m going to email my friend and ask her to try it.
Thanks to all on the forum for all the help and input. What a great resource! Completely appropriate for the great application that Dorico is.