Printing out scores?

[reith]

While considering either finale or sibelius to prepare final versions of orchestral scores, I can't find information on their sites/specs about how to print the files on decent-sized paper. A3 is probably too big so I'm investigating other sizes - 11"x14" (in the old money) or something. No way will 24 staves fit on A4 legibly. At best it looks like a pocket score.

Bottom line, my printer only does A4/Letter/ and smaller so I'd have to get it printed elsewhere. Do either of these programs allow saving in a file-type that can simply be opened to print elsewhere?

Thanks.

[Thorolf]

I know Finale best, and will answer for that. I highly recommend Adobe Acrobat, part of Adobe Creative Suite 2, that, amongst other things, acts as a virtual printer for .pdf files. As Finale produces vector graphics, it’s losslessly scalable. So even a pocket score version printed as an A4 .pdf, will print neatly in A3 if prepared on Acrobat. Acrobat provides the zooming. Also, you can print and make native A3 .pdf files. Compile as postscript is also a start to make losslessly scalable printouts. Most of the above, probably werks for Sibelius too.

The old Finale progams had an option to print each page on multiple pages for tiling, called “Tile Pages”. I haven’t checked what’s on the later versions, but it’s probably there somewhere, to allow printing big scores @ home.

Hope this helps.



Regards

[reith]

Thank you for the info. I haven't yet reached a decision about Finale, it's a nice "nice-to-have" but a bit expensive on time as much as money for the couple of pieces I'd run up per year. For better or worse I'm of an age that predates GOOD computer notation software! - lucky if you spend a lot of time where a computer is unusable!

So I'm still pondering. It isn't something I'd use to sketch out a composition - happier with the convenience of paper up to the final draft stage.

Thanks again.