Will Dorico import a vintage file format such as SCORE?

Thank you. I have a very large score with wwX3, brass, celesta, harp, percussion, timp, string divisi, etc.

Welcome!

Do you mean a SCORE document, the old typesetting program? No, I’m afraid Dorico won’t open it directly.

It’s possible that there is software that can convert SCORE files to XML (possibly python libraries), but otherwise, you’ll have to try scanning a PDF or printed page, if you have one.

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I think Jan de Kloe wrote (write?) many smart programs for SCORE conversion. Try asking him on the Score forum. Sadly Tom B has passed, another very clever programmer. A Dorico file will not be a direct output, some other format will be used and probably end up with Music XML.

Finale used to have a SCORE converter. I can’t remember what version they killed it off, but apparently it was still in Fin2009. If you know someone with access to an older Finale install, perhaps they could do the conversion to XML for you.

Once caveat though - when inputting into SCORE you would only input the visible accidentals, so two consecutive F#s above middle C would be input as FS4 / F. (It’s been decades so perhaps I’m misremembering the syntax here.) In any case, the Finale converter interprets that as F# and F natural, so there was always lots of proofreading and editing required when using the SCORE to Finale converter. It still might be better than scanning though. Just be aware you’ll have lots of accidentals to fix in Finale before exporting XML.

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I just had a blast from the past experience! I found my 2008 iMac with Finale. I’m pretty sure that it will fire up. More to come soon. Thank you all!!

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Sibelius could do that up to version 5.2.5. I have converted a score file library with over 100 pieces for a guy from Australia several years ago. No problems at all. And a publisher I work for asks me to convert files to Sibelius and prepare these for publishing. I hope my PC with Sibelius 5 never dies. Generally speaking you can convert Sibelius to xml without any problems.

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