IMSLP Forums

Hi,

I need to take an opera score from this site, and insert a new libretto. I know that the best option would be something like Sibelius, but frankly it's out of my price range.

Can anyone recommend either a cheap alternative to Sibelius, or a pdf editor that will do the job?

You could use the Gimp (see http://www.gimp.org/) for graphics or for example Musescore (see http://musescore.org/) or Lilypond (see http://lilypond.org/) for new typesets. They are all free.

choul wrote:You could use the Gimp (see http://www.gimp.org/) for graphics...

Just tested this in GIMP. PDFs load fine, and can then be edited, e.g. deleting an old libretto and inserting a new one, but they won't save as PDFs (unless I'm missing something). So you'd need to save them as, say, JPEGs and if you want to end up with PDFs, use a program such as PDFCreator to convert the JPEGs into PDFs. It's slightly long-winded but better than spending c. £500 on Sibelius or the full version of Acrobat.

If you don't mind spending out about £60 you can buy Nitro PDF Professional. (http://www.nitropdf.com)

You can then load the opera score PDF, and insert text fields (with your new text) over the text you want to replace.
You then save the PDF again.

Chances are the score from IMSLP will have been scanned, and not created from a notation program as a PDF, therefore what you will be doing is effectively an electronic version of what you did with the Figaro score you mentioned on Twitter, though less messy.

Nitro PDF has a 14-day free (fully functional) trial so if you are very fast you could do the text replacement during that period and not have to buy it. (Or if you are very crafty and install the trial on 2 separate machines you would effectively have 28 days).

Dave Stowell

I had a problem with Nitro in that it changed my default reader (I wanted to keep Adobe as the reader and just use Nitro to write or edit PDFs), and even after I deleted Nitro it still wouldn't "let go". I couldn't re-set Adobe as the default reader. It kept asking me what I wanted to open images with. Obviously, it was still set to look for Nitro, and this should have been gotten rid of in the uninstall program.

It was sorted out when I downloaded the next upgrade of Adobe, and then in that installation, Adobe set itself as the default, and Nitro was finally overridden.

I found this a bit underhand. Nitro obviously makes sure it is the only program that will be called.

steltz wrote:I found this a bit underhand.

I'd call that malware.

MuseScore (http://musescore.org) is the way to go. If you want free, that is.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I've tried GIMP already, & it does do what's required, but I find it very cumbersome so I'm looking for an easier alternative.

I already have MuseScore installed, but it won't read from pdf files. I've got v0.95, but the download of v1.1 doesn't seem to be working at the moment. Does the latest version read directly from pdf, or are you using separate conversion software?


I'll have a look at Lilypond & Nitro - comments noted re: default reader setting, but I need to install Acrobat X anyway, so that'll sort it if it is a problem.

If you tried the Gimp and it does do what you want than I don't see why you want to use MuseScore or Lilypond. MuseScore and Lilypond are programs voor new typesets and that's different from editing an already available pdf file scanned from real sheet music consisting of images. I don't know if it works, but as far as I know it's possible to load pdf files in the OpenOffice Suite, a program called Write and it can export pdf files too, but I never tried myself to edit a pdf file with Write. I always use the Gimp, but I work with the tiff images and combine those with PDFill. PDFill can split your pdf file too.

Here's another one (not tried): http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfedit/

choul wrote:I don't know if it works...

It does...

choul wrote:but as far as I know it's possible...

It is...

choul wrote:to load pdf files in the OpenOffice Suite, a program called Write and it can export pdf files...

It can! I've used OpenOffice a lot for PDF exports. Like the Gimp it's clunky but works fine.

@ Random_Opera:- You could carve up the IMSLP score in Gimp, use Gimp to delete the old libretto and insert the new, save each page as a JPEG, embed those in Write, export as PDFs, and then stitch the PDFs together in a single PDF score in PDFill.

It depends how long the score is. But if more than a few pages the above process will be faster than making a new score in MuseScore or Lilypond.

Another great option, way cheaper than Sibelius: Notion3.
http://www.notionmusic.com