Export / Import

Score objects can be saved as external files under MIDI or other musical notation formats. Exporting files allows to store and exchange data, and to use/edit this data in other software.

Reciprocally, files created by other software can be imported in OM.

OM instances are textfiles representing any kind of OpenMusic object. This format allows to save and restore the exact object contents, but is not compatible with any other application.

MIDI is a standard format for storing MIDI messages with temporal information. This is the simplest and more common format for storage and interchange of symbolic musical data, although it does not allow to store much rhythmic or other type of high-level information.

MIDI Files roughly correspond to chord-seq objects in OM.

Voice or poly objects can also be stored as MIDI, but most rhythmic information will be lost. Conversely, importing a MIDI file in a voice or poly is equivalent to importing in a chord-seq then quantifying the chord-seq using the metric information (possibly) contained in the MIDI file.

MusicXML is a new standard for storing musical objects including rhythmic and other high-level musical information.

Is is the priviledged and recommeded format in OM to import/export voice and poly objects and interchange with software such as Finale or Sibelius.

ETF (Enigma Transportable Format) is a specific format used by Finale for cross-platform storage.

OM can export voice or poly objects in this format (but not import them). However, compatibility is not supported anymore with recent Finale versions, for which MusicXML should be preferred.

This specific option was designed to import/export from/to Finale using the Finale Import from/Export to OpenMusic menus.

They are not compatible either with recent versions, but have been kept as they were used also for communication with NoteAbility.

The data is transferred via the system "clipboard" (copy/paste buffer) so no file needs to be written.