Sharing Your Music With Others so They Can View, Play, and Print Your Songs

Once you have prepared a song with Notation Composer, you might want to share it with others-- family members, friends, or visitors at your web site.  There are several ways you can share you music with others:

Send your Notation .not file via email to your family member or friend, or publish the .not file at your web site.  Instruct your family member, friend, or web site visitor to download the free Notation Player from www.notation.com/DownloadNotationPlayer.htm.  Or, you can send the Notation Player with your  .not file, or make it directly downloadable from your web site.

The free Notation Player lets the user view, play, and print your music exactly as you saved it.  It has many of the features of Notation Musician. However, it does not allow the user to edit the music.

The MIDI file format is the most common format supported by Composer for sharing your song with others.  On most Windows systems, the user can double-click the MIDI file name and it will immediately start playing.

The MIDI file format directly supports only playing, not viewing and printing.  That, in fact, is the main purpose of Notation Musician, to convert MIDI files to viewable and printable sheet music.

To export your song as a MIDI file, use the File menu's Export as MIDI or Karaoke command, and choose MIDI File as the save-as file type.

MusicXML is a standard file format for sharing the notation of music scores between different music software programs.   Many of the most popular music notation programs can import MusicXML files that have been saved by Notation Composer.

To export your song as a MusicXML  file, use the File's menu Export as MusicXML File  command.

A future version of Notation Composer will provide an option for directly saving a part or score as a viewable and printable PDF file.  In the mean time, you can use one of several inexpensive or free PDF printer drivers available from third parties.  Once you have installed such a PDF printer driver, you can save a part or score as a PDF file by choosing the PDF file printer instead of a normal printer when you use the File / Print command.

For help in finding a PDF printer driver, visit the Notation Users Community Forum, and go to the section on Using Notation with Third Party Products >> PDF printer drivers.