The Most Important Thing
The most important thing to remember when exporting a PDF from Finale is that you must embed the fonts into the PDF. If you do not embed the fonts, those fonts will be replaced by whatever the person who downloads the file happens to have on their computer; in other words, all the notes will be replaced by letters.
The Software for Sharing Scores via PDF
PDF has become one of the most common ways to share music scores via the internet. For a long while I used the full version of Adobe Acrobat to export my scores to PDF. However, upon moving to a more updated form of Windows, I found that I could no longer use my copy of Acrobat and did not want to pay for the steep upgrade. I tried several options, but have been most satisfied with a program called Cute PDF.
- Download Cute PDF Writer here : It’s free.
From Cute PDF to Score
- Install Cute PDF on you computer.
- Open your score in Finale and select print.
- Choose Cute PDF as your printer.
- Select ‘Properties.’
- Select ‘Advanced’ in the Cute PDF properties screen.
- Look for ‘True Type Font’ and select the option ‘Download as Softfont’ instead of ‘Substitute with Device Font’ (which will give you letters instead of notes).
- Select ‘OK’ until you get back to the print screen.
- When you print it you will be prompted to save the PDF.
- This PDF will show up properly on other people’s computers.
That’s it. The key thing is to select that ‘Download as Softfont’ option and you are good to go. That same advanced screen will also allow you change the paper size for scores printed on Legal or Tabloid dimensions.
