How To Convert Sibelius Files To Musescore

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Armanda Kicks

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Aug 4, 2024, 7:42:05 PM8/4/24

to isstoparin

Itwould be very nice if there was some degree of interoperability between Musescore and all-around Sibelius. Many people send me .sib files and at the moment I can't do anything with it on Musescore.

Many people don't use Musescore and use Sibelius because of the industry standard (.sib). If Musescore had a tool, even if rudimentary, to import .sib files, it would certainly remove a entry barrier for many users and make Musescore much more competitive.

I understand. But my point is that some form of interoperability would be great. The fact that the .sib format is proprietary does not mean that such interoperability is impossible. Just as it is possible to work with .doc files in LibreOffice and .psd files in Gimp, it would be a phenomenal feature to be able to open .sib documents in Musescore, even in a rudimentary way.

I think it is .docx files. that LibreOffice can open. That's because Microsoft changed the format from .doc to . docx to allow other programs to open Word files. Sibelius has no reason to allow such compatibility. As nice as it would be, it has to start with Sibelius.

I don't think this is correct.

If i remember correctly, the Linux community reverse engineered the .doc format before Microsoft made the specifications public.

OpenOffice/LibreOffice can open all doc and docx files.

Same happened with Microsoft SMB protocol.

This will probably not happen with sibelius files, because of not enough interest.

It can now.

I don't think there is any compelling reason for Sibelius to let that happen. Especially when mxl. works. People sending files might want to do so in a format that the receiver can use. If possible. Besides not all sib. files are compatible with all versions of Sibelius, either.

My Sibelius 5 program has crashed. I had upgraded my laptop to Windows 7 and it seems there are all kinds of compatibility issues. The technicans on the forum and through emails have tried their best to be helpful, but I am not a great techie and have fears that I am going to crash my whole computer! At any rate, I've enjoyed getting to know musescore and have managed to notate a few pieces while I've been trying to fix Sibelius. So my question is, I'd be happy to switch over, but I have more than a hundred Sibelius files that I can't presently open. I've run out of time for technical help before it starts to cost. I can upgrade to Sibelius 7 for $150 if I'm sure there are no bugs or things that will mess up. I'd be happy to continue learning about Musescore, but would need to convert my Sibelius files. I read in some forum or another here - I forget where - that had temporary way to do it, but they did not mention Windows 7 as working with it - I think they just mentioned Vista and a couple others.... I have all pdf files of most of the Sibelius files - is there anyway I would be able to convert those pdf files to Musescore files? Help! And thanks!

PDF won't be useful - that's just graphics, with no information about the actual music - but if you borrow a copy of Sibelius 7 that works, you can export you score to MusicXML format, and then load that into MuseScore.

Thanks for the quick reply. The MusicXML format will work with Windows 7 then? I've googled MusicXML and it looks interesting - hope it's not too far beyond me to learn how to do. I thought, though, there were proprietary issues with Sibelius that would not enable me to do this. You have heard otherwise?

So - to find someone who has Sibelius 7 to borrow, if that is possible...

As for the various PDF options, there is absolutely no way it will go anywhere near as smoothly as with MusicXML. There are some scores for which it might go a little faster than re-entering it by hand, others whee it won't. It's more a desperation option for if MusicXML isn't possible. If you only have one score to do, it might turn out to be no more trouble than tracking down a copy of sibelius 7, but if you've got a bunch, then it will absolutely be worth the trouble of getting MusicXML.

PDFtoMusic Pro does a good job in many cases and it is better than the typical interpretation of a graphics file. The free demo version will convert only 1 page at a time but you can loop around it doing all the pages. Since it will say when a font-file is missing in the PDF, I'd say it is not just "scanning" a graphic.

Well, a PDF file is text as well as graphics if you want to get technical, but the point is, it contains no *musical* information. Even if a half note is represented as a glyph in a music font rather than a bitmap or vector image, it's still just a symbol as far a music scanning / "OCR" program is concerned. It has no way of knowing that symbol represents a note that is two beats long, or of ascertaining on what beat that note starts, or what the pitch of that note is, except by "looking" at it graphically ("hey, what do you know, that symbol is a hollow oval with a stick coming out of it - must be a half note; now I'll look to see where it is in relation to all the other symbols to see where it starts and what pitch it is"). Whereas a format like MusicXML is all about the musical meaning of the symbols - no interpretation of graphical information required.

Thanks for all the help. I'm out of town for a few days and will try to work on this when I get back. Can we keep this thread open for quite some time? I'm discussing this with my more techcnically-oriented family members who will be here at Thanksgiving! Will try to work on this starting next week, though, and if you have any other suggestions, I'll be sure to check my email while I'm gone.

This here does the job:

it's for free but you need to register. I tried it with a melody containing a violin staff and two staffs for Piano (treble and bass clef) and it works perfectly. Takes 2 minutes for about 60 meters but the result was amazingly correct. AND, this is AMAZING!!!! it does batch processing as well. "Translate folder of scores to MusicXML"

It should be mentioned - the filename of the exported xml must be latin. It can contain german umlaut and french accents, but cyrillic (and probably others) are not supported. If the .sib Filename contains non-latin letters yu have to change that to latin letters first or you get tons of error messages and an empty xml file. But that works inside of Sibelius - plugins - music XML.

it's somehow OT but you need your Sibelius for doing this and Sibelius 5.1 and Win7 SP1 64 Bit works... Musescore 1.2 works as well - but there are 2 issues for Sibelius I know and solved for myself: 1) yu must go through the registration process again and 2) there's a dll that must be changed otherwise Sibelius5 crashes when playing the startup sound. The sound-DLL can be obtained from Sibelius website and must be put here:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Sibelius Software\Sibelius 5\portaudio_x86.dll

If it's 32 bit forget the (x86).

"Sibelius 7 includes built-in MusicXML export, so no separate purchase is required, and because the

exporter is built directly into Sibelius itself, it is faster and includes more data than a separate plug-in."

I'm confused about the reference to a MusicXML convertedr on the MakeMusic site above. I visited the linked page, and saw general information about MusicXML, but not anything you could register for and convert with. Or did you just mean, you can download a plugin if you already own Sibelius (or Finale)? Both programs now come with MusicXML export support built in, but I guess this page allows you to download the plugin for older versions of Sibelius, whereas that used to be an expensive add-on. So that's cool.

Since MakeMusic bought Recordare, the maker of MusicXML, the Dolet plugin is available free of charge (but with this registration process...). The dolet is usable with older version of Sibelius and Finale and often give better MusicXML export than the embed version.

And there's a batch processing for folders, at least that should do something.. So you get rid about a "save disabled" problem in the demo. Or the Sibelius demo refuses to write files completely? I would give the folder-conversion thing a try, at least it must be visible in the "plugin" menu of Sibelius. I cannot believe that Sibeluis disables the plugin menu item...

Back in the old days, I used Sibelius to typeset scores. I've switched to the great open-source MuseScore now and don't miss anything from Sibelius except... my old scores.I know that there is a MusicXML export plugin in Sibelius, but I won't install Sibelius or any other proprietary software.Is there a way to convert the Sibelius scores into some free format (that is recognised by MuseScore, such as MusicXML)?

I think that the free software community would forgive your one-off use of proprietary software for the purposes of converting proprietary files into an open format, especially if this aids your transition to free software..

After all, you could have done the conversion before you uninstalled Sibelius, so it doesn't really make that much difference if you re-install it now just to do the conversion, and then uninstall it again afterwards.

Alternatively, if you have a friend who uses Sibelius, you could always ask to borrow their computer just to do the conversion, thereby preserving the ethical purity of your own machine. This may also be the best course of action if you don't have a valid Sibelius subscription.

Sibelius won't open MusicXML files exported from Musescore 3

Posted by Basstbone129 - 25 Jun 12:11AM Hide picture When importing a file exported from Musescore 3 as musicxml, Sibelius gives the error message "This is not a MusicXML file and cannot be loaded: Element tie is not defined in this scope" and then refuses to open the file. This happens when exporting the file from Musescore as a .mxl extension and as a .musicxml extension.

I'm currently taking the time to redo and revamp some arrangements of mine from a few years ago, so I'd rather work from what I had than start over.

Sibelius will open the MIDI exports, but those are incredibly barebones and unusable to the point that transcribing from scratch would be just as fast.

Is there a solution to get Sibelius to open these files, and save me some time and work that I've already done?

Currently running "Version 2019.12 build 2071, born on 2019-11-28"

Posted by Mike Lyons - 25 Jun 06:34AM (edited 25 Jun 06:34AM) Hide picture I tried several variations of this process, moving files between Sib and MuseScore, but I could not cause this to happen. As an alternative, you could export to PDF and run it through PhotoScore.

My version of Sib is later than yours, though.

Win 10 Pro x64, Sib Ultimate 2020.3(build 2503) 2.6GHz Intel Core i7 9750H, 32GB,10TB (SSD + 7200rpm HDD), Scarlett 2i4, Sib 6.2,7.5, NotePerformer and others.

Si me castigare vis, necesse est me intellexisse.

[email protected] Back to top Allthreads Re: Sibelius won't open MusicXML files exported from Musescore 3

Posted by Robin Walker - 25 Jun 07:58AM Hide picture Please provide for us a MusicXML file that exhibits these symptoms on import to Sibelius.

As one cannot attach MusicXML files in this forum, upload the MusicXML file to somewhere in the cloud, and provide us with a URL for the file.

Sibelius 2020.6/7.5.1/7.1.3/6.2/5.2.5, PhotoScore Ult 2020.1, Windows 10 64-bit 16GB. Desktop, and Microsoft Surface Book. Back to top Allthreads Re: Sibelius won't open MusicXML files exported from Musescore 3

Posted by Laurence Payne - 25 Jun 11:59AM (edited 27 Jun 03:36PM) Hide picture Standard advice when Sibelius rejects a MusicXML file (not uncommon!) is to open it in MuseScore and re-export. Even though the XML originated in MuseScore, this might still be worth trying. And, of course, if MuseScore rejects it, we've learned something.

Have you any other programs that can accept a MusicXML file? Back to top Allthreads Re: Sibelius won't open MusicXML files exported from Musescore 3

Posted by Robin Walker - 25 Jun 03:26PM Hide picture This was a known problem with MuseScore MusicXML export of a score that had ties on cue notes.

It was fixed in MuseScore 3.5.

Posted by DanB - 21 Aug 06:54PM Hide picture I also am having trouble importing a *.musicxml file I received from a colleague as an export from Finale. Sibelius Ultimate does not even recognize this extension as a valid sibelius file type.

I have a total of 7 files. The first two, I was able to open by simply changing the extension to .xml and ignoring all the "warnings". There was the usual cleanup, but all of the notes, keys, time signatures, lyrics, bar types and even most of the instrument sounds imported correctly. The ending lines don't translate, but there is minimal cleanup.

The third score is not working at all. Link below.

Any ideas?

=0 Back to top Allthreads Re: Sibelius won't open MusicXML files exported from Musescore 3

Posted by Robin Walker - 21 Aug 07:12PM Hide picture I did not have any problem importing that MusicXML file into Sibelius.

What version number of Sibelius Ultimate are you using?

Here's a hint: NEVER "Let Sibelius choose instrument". ALWAYS choose the instruments yourself, and make sure they are correct, before proceeding with the rest of the import.

Posted by DanB - 21 Aug 07:20PM Hide picture thank you, Robin, for the response. I have S7 on my personal laptop. I bought S.Ultimate for the church, but just keep using what I have - making it work. :) Back to top Allthreads Re: Sibelius won't open MusicXML files exported from Musescore 3

Posted by DanB - 21 Aug 07:17PM Hide picture I believe I saw a notification that there was a response to my query. As of right now, I don't see it on the community feed.

A couple of things to note. I have a 12-year old laptop that only runs Sibelius on Windows 7. I purchased Sibelius7 about 5 years ago. We do have Sibelius Ultimate for the church (my mistake calling it out earlier)

I want to let y'all know that after closing Sibelius down and restarting, the file did finally load. Here's what I did

original file exported from Finale:"it came to pass.musicxml" would not open

I changed the extension to "it came to pass.xml" and then opened through Sibelius

Message: "This is not a MusicXML file and cannot be loaded: Element glyph is not defined in this scope."

(click OK)

Message: This MusicXML file uses an old version of MusicXML. Sibelius 7 can attempt to import it, but you may encounter some unexpected problems. Do you want to continue?

(click Yes) Back to top Allthreads Re: Sibelius won't open MusicXML files exported from Musescore 3

Posted by Robin Walker - 21 Aug 07:44PM Hide picture If you are using an ancient version of Sibelius, it will not cope elegantly with a modern version of MusicXML that was defined after that version of Sibelius was created. If you "OK"/"Yes" though all the error pop-ups, you will end up with an import that gets the basics right.

Posted by Eric Crouch - 02 Sep 05:13PM Hide picture Using Sibelius Ultimate you can import a file exported from MuseScore as 'compressed Music XML' which has the file extension mxl. With MuseScore 3.5 this works smoothly; with earlier versions there was a Sibelius message saying it is an old version of XML, but it still worked.

Eric Crouch; Sibelius 2020.6, NotePerformer

iMac 4GHz with 64GB RAM running Catalina;

MacBook Air 2.2GHz with 8GB RAM running Catalina.

3a8082e126

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