ipad vs. tablet for sheet music

[barbara-brundage]

In the mac version PDF is one of the save options right in Finale. I would have thought that would be true in windows as well.

EDIT If for some reason it’s not, then you would probably get better results using another program to save to PDF than by scanning. CutePDF used to be popular, but I haven’t looked at it lately, so can’t comment on how it is these days.

[barbara-brundage]

Oh I see that irfanview, which is free, can do this. It can probably batch save them if necessary. You should have it anyway if you have a windows computer, but if finale can Save As, you’ll get best quality that way, even if it’s more of a hassle.

[haromagik]

Okay, that is super cool. I have to “export” it to pdf, but then I can have a file on my desktop that is ready to go. Pretty easy, and certainly easier than printing and scanning. Not clear what irfanview is. Is it a program that converts documents to pdfs? I looked at the website and wasn’t clear what it was or how to use it. Thank you so much for your expertise! And you really think 16GB is enough? Now I am pondering about wifi connection only, or to have the wifi with cellular…

[barbara-brundage]

ifranview is kind of the swiss army knife program for Windows. It can read almost any obscure file format and often will open damaged files when other programs can’t read them anymore. It’s a little utility that everyone who uses Windows ought to have, IMHO.

Yes, for music reading 16 GB is plenty. Now if you wanted to get into major field recording of entire concerts, probably not, but otherwise you’ll be fine.

As far as data plan or not, there’s a third option, which is to get some kind of a mifi, which is a credit card sized device that lets you set up your own wifi hotspot wherever you are. Most of them are tied to contracts so they’re not as good as just getting a data plan, but there are some, like the True Connect, where you have to pay for the mifi itself, but then you can pay as little as $5 a month, only in the months when you use it, and also use it with your computer if you like. The disadvantage is that if you use it a lot it gets expensive pretty fast (beyond a simple email check the per Mb charge is quite high), and the reliability is variable. I used to have the one from Virgin and there were places where it was infinitely faster than the hotel wifi and places where I couldn’t get online with it at all.

[haromagik]

well, I took the plunge and bought an ipad air! Scanning begins after Christmas. Thanks for all your guidance and support, everyone! Happy holidays!

[Sherri Matthew]

Hi Ellen,

Happy Holidays to you too! Please let us know how you like your new iPad! (but don’t forget your harp! 😉

Have fun,
Sherri

[haromagik]

Well, thank you again, everyone, for all your advice and input. I am happily dropboxing my music onto my ipad! I have learned how to annotate my music, and have ordered my foot pedals and stand. This is going to be such a great help to me, and was so much easier than I thought. (Might make a mac convert out of me!) You’re the best!

[David Ice]

One thing to consider is the “aspect ratio” of the iPad verses an Android tablet. The Android is formatted to a HD aspect ratio–or 16×9. The iPad is closer to 4×3…which means, simply, it’s closer to the size of an 8.5×11″ piece of sheet music. After doing a LOT of tests myself, a 10″ iPad will give you a bigger usuable screen than a 10″ Android tablet–you don’t have any “leftover real estate” on the screen. In other words, a page of sheet music will almost perfectly fill an iPad screen, but on an Android tablet you will have extra unused screen at the top or bottom. I went with an iPad for this reason. Plus, with ForeScore you can crop and enlarge a pdf file image as well. So you can “blow up” a page of sheet music to get the most of your screen size.

[Author]

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