Using the newest Dorico version 1.2 on Mac Pro, I tried importing a 1.5 MB xml file, and Dorico crashed. This same file opened fine with Sibelius. I also tried creating a smaller xml file of only 139 KB, this one opens fine with Dorico. Is this a bug or is there something I can do? Using a Mac Pro with 12 Gig ram, as mentioned there is no problem at all opening this with Sibelius.
Can you attach the MusicXML file in question here? The crash won’t be related to the size of the MusicXML file (because of the verbosity of XML 1.5MB is not particularly large), but rather to something specific inside the file. Please zip it up and attach it here.
Here is the file. Created with the newest version of PDFtoMusicPro ver. 1.6.3
III-Montuno.W&M.7.xml.zip (46.9 KB)
Unfortunately in this MusicXML file some of the time signatures are not at the start of the bar, which Dorico can’t cope with. Obviously this shouldn’t crash, so I will pass this file on to the team and we’ll see if we can protect against the crash, but the resulting document would still have some pretty significant errors in any case. If you have the option of using a different OMR program in the meantime, I think that would be a good idea.
Dear ErnieMuse,
I own Photoscore Ultimate, if you want to send me the file I can send you the XML produced 
No thank you, Marc.
Daniel, thanks for looking into this. I assume OMR is something related to optical scanning? The thing is, PDFtoMusicPro reads fonts and graphics directly from my PDF files that were created by an older music software program and - unless you know of a similar product - I would prefer to see if PDFtoMusicPro can improve their product. This particular file I sent, I know it has many time signature changes, so what you are saying makes sense. Also, I see that PDFMP has a number of options, so I will try tweaking them.
OMR = Optical Music Recognition
Well, ErnieMuse,
I was offering to try if Photoscore Ultimate, which is the exact comptetitor to PDFtoMusicPro, would do better, especially with tricky scores. Feel free to send me the original pdf in PM if you want.
MarcLarcher,
I’m using PhotoScore Ulitmate next to PDFtoMusicPro. I use PhotoScore for scanned music, but PDFtoMusicPro is not a scan program (OCM) that tries to read a graphic file. Some information from the Myriad homepage:
“From a document in PDF format (that you can generate from any software, even from discontinued products), PDFtoMusic Pro rebuilds the original score, and exports it for instance into MusicXML format, useable in most of the professional score editors.
Because it only processes PDF files that have been exported from a score editor software, PDFtoMusic Pro offers a unique reliability and outstanding results. Therefore, scanned sheet music cannot be managed by PDFtoMusic Pro.”
PDFto MusicPro does a very good job! It works well with Sibelius, but so far I also have problems with importing MusicXML files into Dorcio. I hope that Dorico will do a better job in importing files and I also hope, that Myriad will improve the quality of their MusicXML files. I’ve already send Daniel’s comment to them.
Thanks Heipet for reminding me the differences! I checked that before buying Photoscore… It is better suited for my needs. I hope Myriad will hunt the problem!
Marc, Heider, and Daniel, and all,
PDF to Music pro is an app worthy of improvement. Like many apps, it serves an extremely useful purpose. For one thing, it can batch process many files at once, saving time and money, as you do not have to print out the Files, Scan the files, and then clean up any optical character recognition issues. In the XML file in question, the one I sent to Daniel, it opens perfectly fine in Sibelius. The only significant issue with the file was that it contained some extra time signatures, which I deleted in approximately 30 seconds. So, it would be most helpful to try to improve both Dorico and PDF to Music pro so they work more harmoniously together.
Ok, ErnieMuse.
FWIW, I remind any reader here that Photoscore does OMR on pdf files, you don’t have to print them and scan them to work with it.
Thanks Marc,
I haven’t tried Photoscore in a while. I’m glad it can read PDF files. However, I wonder, does it actually read the fonts and vectors directly, or does it the whole image as an Optical image? Let me put it this way… I want ALL these apps to work well, and I want ALL the programmers to succeed! Its a narrow field, and I appreciate any and all efforts. There are other things I like about PDFtoMusicPro - it can SING my scores!! PDFTMP has a vocal and speech synthesizer that sings the lyrics!! Now Marc, being an Opera singer, that may not be so impressive, but for me, a composer, it is very, very helpful.
Hi every one,
I also have some problems while importing some Music XML files in Dorico. None of my XML files are correctly imported (so I finally choose to import my music with MIDI files even if I have some problems to but easier to solve)
Each time, Dorico show me a warning message to tell me there are some errors and then, when Dorico finished to import the XML file I can see what’s wrong. Obviously, the last time (10 min ago), Dorico did insert a bar with a special metric just for some instruments. I mean in a 10/8 bar for all instruments, an other 12/8 bar was inserted in the same time for some instrument (10/8 + 12/8 in a 10/8 bar ???).
I wanted to try to delete the 12/8 metric but Dorico finally crashed.
And this is just an example.
I have problems with all my XML files so… I guess it comes from my other software I use to export XML files. But I don’t know why Dorico crash.
What software are you using to generate XMLs, Ed-222?
I still use GuitarPro 5 !
I know, I know… Please don’t laugh. You may think it’s not a professional software. Even if I’m not a guitarist, it’s the faster way I found to compose primarily for orchestra !! Then I was re-writing with Finale to get a correct scores.
Now I use Dorico, it could save me precious time if I could be able to import Music XML files correctly. Importing with MIDI files lost some informations but it works better to me for the moment.
In that case, I’m not much help - I have no experience of GuitarPro!
I was thinking that it sounded like a Finale problem - particularly in older versions of Finale it’s very easy to find yourself with bars that don’t add up, even if (in Finale) they look like they add up. One of the canonical utilities fixes this problem before exporting to XML.
Since you have Finale and Finale’s XML seem to import well in Dorico (as well as Sibelius’) I suggest you export your files to Finale, and then create a new XML from there to Dorico. It can look like a hassle but in the end you could earn a lot of time ! Hope it helps !
Thanks pianoleo, thanks Marc,
Your idea looks great !!! … But unfortunately I can’t use my old Finale 2011 anymore cause it doesn’t work on my new computer and my older one crashed last Xmas.
So sad… I’ll continue with MIDI, unless SuperDorico or someone else find a better solution.
Ed, can you send me by email the problematic MusicXML files? My email address is d dot spreadbury at steinberg dot de. Please include a link to this thread in your email so I can remember what I’m supposed to be looking at!