188: Creating PDF files with Sibelius

Portable Document Format (PDF) files allow documents generated by programs such as word processors and desktop publishers to be published electronically, preserving their original appearance, for viewing and printing on any system.

Sibelius supports the creation of PDF files, provided you have a suitable PDF creator installed on your computer.

On Mac OS X using Sibelius 2.1 or later, you can generate PDF files directly as follows:

• Choose File > Print
• Click the Save as PDF button

If you want to use the Sibelius batch printing processes such as 'Print Folder of Scores' or 'Print Multiple Copies' via the pdf creator then please do the following:

• Open the application Print Center (from Applications > Utilities on your mac), then select
• Choose IP Printing, Printer Type: LPD/LPR, Printer Address: localhost, Queue Name: PDF Printer, Printer Model: Generic, then press the Add button. Now you have created a Generic Postscript Printer.
• Next, in the Sibelius Print Dialog (File > Print) you choose your newly created printer, look for Output Options, then tick Save as File and choose as Format PDF. Then under Presets choose Save and give this setting a distinct name (for example Printing as PDF).
• If you set this printer as Default Printer, whenever in Sibelius you run the Plugin "Print Folder of Scores" or "Print Multiple Copies", the PDF Printer will be selected.
  Thanks to Klaus Bundies for that last bit of information on setting up the generic printer.

Note that the above procedures only works using Sibelius 2.1 or later under Mac OS X 10.2 or later.

For other operating systems, the official PDF creator is Adobe Acrobat, which is a commercial product available from www.adobe.com for both Mac and Windows, but there are other options:

1. For Windows, a pdf creator many users have had sucess with is: pdfcreator.sourceforge.net
2. For Windows, a cheaper commercial alternative than Adobe's is pdf995, available from www.pdf995.com
3. For Windows, another alternative is pdfFactory, available from www.fineprint.com
4. For Mac, an alternative package is Jaws PDF Creator, available from www.hallogram.com
5. A cost-free alternative is to use Ghostscript, which is a PostScript interpreter capable of creating PDF files. It is available for both Windows and Mac from www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/ and is updated frequently, although it can be difficult to set up at first.

PDF files are generated by software which installs and behaves like a printer driver. This means that creating a PDF is as simple as printing a file from Sibelius, choosing the appropriate ‘printer’ as you do so. For further instructions, consult the documentation that accompanies your PDF creation software.

To view PDF files, you need to have the free Adobe Reader software installed on your computer. Download it from Adobe's web site.