pdf problems
Since it has been a while since the last post on this problem I'll start a new one:
I lately tried to export (i.e. save as) a mscz. file to pdf. (Musescore version 1.1. on MacOS; OS too old for upgrade to 1.2.). The results look quite good, but there are two little problems that bother me:
1. the file size is enormous: 2.1 MB pdf from 128 kb mscz! This is ten pages of a violin part on A4. The size seems excessive compared to pdfs from other sources that show details plenty well. It makes up- and downloading or e-mail attacheing cumbersome. Is there any fix in musecscore, that I have missed? Or does anyone know of a trick to "process" pdf files to make them smaller (my scanner allows me to choose this, but I don't want to print, scan and save...)?
2. Some markings in the score appear in grey rather than black, notably hairpins and dynamic markings in words (i.e. "crescendo, diminuendo,etc,; the small codes: f, p, mf etc. are fine). Those last are particularly pale. Which means one has to hope playing around with printer settings will get the result ok... Does anyone know how to address this--either in Musescore or by "massaging" the pdf files?
Comments
Does it have embeded pictures (.png,.jpg)? They may not take much space themself or in the .mscz, but do blow up the .pdf by quite a bit, esp. when increased to something larger than their default size.
In reply to Does it have embeded pictures by Jojo-Schmitz
There are no embedded pictures, only a title page with 3 lines of text in a one page frame. Attached is page 3 from the cello part (9 pages incl. titlepage, 1.6 Mb). At bar 85 you can see the pale-grey "crescendo" marking.
In reply to no pictures by azumbrunn
It's not grey, its just a very thin font. Zoom in on the PDF to see it is indeed black.
In reply to It's not grey, its just a by schepers
Looks like you jave changed the font for the word "crescendo" from its default (Times italic, I believe) to something else. Appears to be mscore or mscore1, since it seems to lack some cjaracters and they have therefore been replaced from another font and thus don't match well.
As for the PDF sizes, I find my sizes run in the 10-100K range typically. My largest file is a 20 page big band score in a very small font - 18 staves per page, upward of a dozen measures per line, lots of notes and markings - and it clocks in at 400K. So I'd say there must be something funny going on if you are seeing scores that are half as long coming out five times larger. Perhaps you are using an especially large non-standard font somwhere and it is being embedded in your file?
By way of experiment, don't Save it i.e., don't use File->Save As and save it as a PDF. Choose, instead, to "print" it ([Ctrl]-P) and select the option "Print to File (PDF)". Check that it is set for a sensible size of paper (like A4).
In reply to Huge PDF by underquark
It seems underquark has found an excellent solution. I tried just that, now the total file is 380 kb (down from 1.6 Mb). Also the "crescendo" marking is now as black as everything else.
And, no, Marc, I do think I have the default font for dynamics (MScore1) still in place. What I do have is a few markings that were not in the score and I changed their size to 10 points to make visible what I did and what the composer did.
I printed the large file and the small file and find no difference in readability; also in the small file the "crescendo" prints black whereas in the large file it prints as if the printer were running out of ink (while all the rest is fine).
I wonder if my problem is version specific since other people don't have it. Anyway, for me things are fine now.
In reply to Thanks, everybody! by azumbrunn
I checked the Properties of your PDF file and found that it had been generated by Mac's Quartz whereas in my system running ubuntu I see that Qt handles the PDF side of things. Then I just had a hunch that Mac handles PDF differently depending upon whether you're Saving or Printing. So maybe a Mac expert can shed more light on this.