TURNING SHEET MUSIC INTO PDF FILES

Adobe sells some very expensive programs that allow you to generate PDF files. But after some research, I discovered a little-known FREE way of creating PDF files that is sufficient for most purposes. I have tried this method on both Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, and don't know whether something similar would work under DOS, Macintosh, or Unix platforms. Keep in mind that once you generate the PDF files, your sheet music will be viewable on all computers, I just don't know how to create PDF files except on Windows platforms. It takes some time to set up the process the first time, but once you have installed all the right programs and have gotten it to work once, it takes hardly any time to convert sheet music to PDF files.

Setup Step 1:

If you're running Windows 3.1, you will need to install Win32s, available for free from Microsoft at: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/mslfiles/pw1118.exe.

To create the PDF files you will need to download the following free files into a temp directory on your hard drive (the latest version of thes files can be found at the Ghostscript Home Page, http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/index.html):

  • ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/rjl/gsview21.zip
  • ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/aladdin/gs403ini.zip
  • ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/aladdin/gs403w32.zip
  • ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/aladdin/gs403fn1.zip

    Unzip gsview21.zip and then run setup.exe. This will install Aladdin Ghostscript 4.03 (an interpreter for the Adobe Postscript language), and gsview, a graphical interface for ghostscript. The first time you run gsview, select Display Settings from the Media pull-down menu, and change Resolution to 90dpi (so that files will load quickly). In your windows directory, you'll need to edit gsview32.ini. Look for the line "pdfwrite=" and change it to: 

    pdfwrite=72,300
    You'll also want to edit ps2pdf.bat in the \gstools\gs4.01 directory. You must change gs to gswin32c and add a -I flag to include the new font directories. For example, my ps2pdf.bat now contains the line: 
    gswin32c -q -dNOPAUSE -Ic:\gstools\gs4.01;c:\gstools\gs4.01\fonts -sDEVICE#pdfwrite -sOutputFile#%2 %1

    Setup Step 2:

    If you do not have a postscript printer installed on your computer, you will have to install a "virtual" postscript printer. Select "Add printer" from the printers section of Windows' control panel, and select a postscript printer. For example, on Windows 95, I selected Apple Laserwriter Pro 810, and on Windows 3.1, I selected a Hewlett Packard Laserjet III with Postscript. The computer will prompt you for the original Windows disk, and it will copy a postscript printer driver to your windows directory. A new printer will also be added to your set of choices. You will want to change the name of the printer to something you'll remember, like "Postscript Printer", and you'll want to change the printer's port to be FILE: instead of LPT1 to make it "virtual". Also, you'll want to configure the settings of the virtual printer to "optimize for portability" and "always use TrueType fonts" when printing [the descriptions of these options vary between Win3.1 and Win95]. If you have Windows 3.1, you should make sure you have the most recent postscript driver. The most recent Win3.1 postscript driver can be downloaded free from Microsoft at ftp://www.microsoft.com/softlib/mslfiles/pscrip.exe.

    Conversion Step 1:

    If you create and store your arrangements with a Windows-based notation program, the conversion process is easy. [I'll discuss handwritten arrangements below]. Load up your notation program, and open your arrangement. Select Print, and when the print dialog box comes up, tell your program that you want to print to your new virtual printer that you called Postscript Printer. When you hit enter, it will create a postscript description of your sheet music, and prompt you for a filename to store this as. Name it yoursong.ps (the .ps extension is important).

    Conversion Step 2 (the command-line version):

    Open a DOS prompt, and "cd \gstools\gs4.01". Type "ps2pdf c:\temp\yoursong.ps c:\temp\yoursong.pdf". [The location of your postscript file will of course depend on where you stored it].

    Conversion Step 2 (the graphical version):

    Run gsview (which you installed in Setup Step 1), and open yoursong.ps. Select Print from the File menu. When the dialog box comes up, select pdfwrite from the long list of printer drivers, select resolution 300dpi, and check the Print to File option. When you hit enter, you will be prompted for a file name to store the created PDF file. You'll want to name it yoursong.pdf.
    These instructions were pulled from directions on How to Publish Barbershop Arrangements on the Web by Mark Engelberg. The instructions are a little out of date. The new version of GhostView (5.10) doesn't seem to require the edits listed here, but I cannot speak for Windows 3.1. Feel free to contact me at aggies97@mailexcite.com for questions or comments.