PDFs

Noteman says: For information regarding advanced PDF features, please visit Adobe’s website at www.adobe.com.

The Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) was developed by the Adobe company to provide a universal file format that preserves the fonts, formatting and graphics of a source document, regardless of what platform or application was used to create it. PDF files can be shared, viewed and printed by anyone with a free Adobe Acrobat Reader. Many Finale users create PDFs to publish on the Web, email to a friend, to give to publishers for further formatting, or to give to a print shop for printing. Finale offers the ability to easily save pages or excerpts of your score as PDF documents.

Noteman says: PDFs exported from Finale are always opaque and are exported using an RGB color space.

To create a PDF document from a Finale file

In Finale, it's easy to save a PDF of your document, specific pages, or a specific region of your score. The following instructions explain how to export full pages using the File menu and Print dialog box. For instructions on exporting musical examples, see To export a selected region of music as a graphic.

1. Open the file in Finale.
2. Choose File > Export > PDF. If you would like to add PDF properties to the file (Subject, Title, Author, etc.), click Additional Properties, add the required info, then click OK.
3. Name the file, chose a destination, and click Save. Finale creates a PDF of the currently visible document. For example, if a part is being viewed, Finale creates a PDF of the part.

Alternatively, you can print to PDF using the Adobe Acrobat Distiller print driver or a different PDF printer with the following steps:

1. Open the file in Finale.
2. Choose File > Print. The Print dialog box appears.
3. Click Setup. The Print Setup dialog box is displayed.
4. From the Printer Name drop-down menu, choose "Acrobat Distiller" or "Acrobat PDF" (or whatever Adobe PDF print driver is installed on your computer). Keep in mind, you’ll need to switch the printer back to your regular printer when you’re done creating PDFs.
5. Click OK. If your document has parts, select which ones you would like to print using the score/parts check boxes in the upper left. Adjust any other print settings (see Printing).
6. Click OK. Finale begins printing using the PDF printer. If Acrobat Distiller is running in the background (you’ll see it at the bottom of your screen in the taskbar), it immediately launches the Acrobat Distiller. Once the Distiller has launched, it displays a Save PDF File As dialog box.
7. Give the file a name (you may wish to save it to the Desktop for convenience) and click Save.

To troubleshoot PDF documents

For complete information, see your Adobe Acrobat documentation. The below suggestions are problems that Finale users have commonly encountered.

Problem: When I run the Distiller, I get the error message “…[font name] cannot be embedded due to licensing restrictions.”

Solution: Update to the newest Acrobat Distiller version. For more information, visit www.adobe.com. A quick and dirty workaround is to change to Outline in the Fonts/Send Fonts As portion of the Distiller printer driver.

Problem: I’m using my PostScript printer instead of the Distiller driver. Now I’m getting a Finale­Dict error.

Solution: Some drivers seem to require an additional setting for Finale’s mixed graphics and fonts. To correct the problem, exit all programs, including Finale. From the Start menu, choose Settings, Printers. Right-click on the printer and choose Properties. Click on the PostScript tab. Set the PostScript to Optimize for Portability. Click the Apply button, then OK. Close the Printers window and try again. If you still receive errors, or your printer driver does not have a PostScript tab, try the suggestion below.

Problem: I’m using my PostScript printer instead of the Distiller driver. I’m still getting a Finale­Dict error, even though I’ve tried Optimize for Portability.

Solution: Some drivers seem to require an additional setting for Finale’s mixed graphics and fonts, but the driver doesn’t allow for Optimizing. Exit all programs, including Finale. Navigate to your Finale folder and double-click on a file called Finale.ini (It may just be called Finale, and the icon will look like a notepad.) The file will open in Notepad. The first section of this file is under the heading [Settings]. Add another line in this first section with this text:

OwnPS=0

Then Save and Exit Notepad. Try creating a PDF again.