You never forget the first time

With spring and a sense of renewal in the air, last week I had the pleasure of seeing Sibelius do something new for the first time. It’s a small pleasure, often repeated throughout the course of each development cycle, but you never forget the first time you see an idea you had brought to life in […]

On the “Finalification” of Sibelius

Composer and educator Joshua Harris has just upgraded to Sibelius 5, and has posted a short review, in which he coins the term “Finalification.” This term resonates with me, and perhaps I might be permitted to attempt a (cheeky!) definition: Fi•na•li•fi•ca•tion (fin-ah-li-fi-key-shuhn, fə-nāl’ē-fĭ-kā’shən, noun): an act of masking great power behind bewildering complexity.

Tip: Editing instrument names quickly

There are currently almost 200 additional plug-ins for Sibelius available for download from the Sibelius web site. They’re really an incredible resource, and if you’ve never taken the time to have a look at the plug-ins on offer there, you’re strongly recommended to do so. Just about all of those plug-ins have been contributed to […]

Tip: Use Notes > Re-input Pitches to save time

I’ve linked to Dr. Tom Rudolph’s blog before, but Tom’s most recent post is definitely worth a fresh link. He talks about the benefits of using the re-pitching features in your notation software to save time when creating parts: If you use notation software to notate scores, consider using the re-input pitch option available in […]

Sibelius for the visually impaired

We have always tried to make Sibelius as accessible as possible for users with disabilities or impairments. Mostly this has been achieved through trying to follow the guidelines set by Microsoft and Apple for how applications should interact with the accessibility technologies built in to the operating system. Blind and visually impaired users have been […]

Creating PDFs from Sibelius

Update – September 16, 2013: The following post from 2008 pertains to Sibelius 6 and earlier versions. For instructions and tips on how to create PDF files from Sibelius 7, see this blog post. Nowadays many Sibelius worfklows end with creating a PDF file. “PDF” stands for “Portable Document Format,” and it’s an open standard […]