Using Adobe Illustrator

Creating a graphic score using NoteAbilityPro and Adobe Illustrator

  1. Using the Select Tool in NoteAbilityPro, make a rectangle around the desired area in NoteAbilityPro.

  2. Use the File/Save Selection As PDF menu (Command-Option-9) to save the selected area as PDF file.
  3. Move to Adobe Illustrator and Open the file you just created. You will notice all graphics for the entire NoteAbilityPro page are included in the Illustrator document, but there is a bounding box which restricts (clips) the graphic to the area you selected. You can alter all the graphic images on the page, but only the area inside the bounding box will be visible when the graphic is printed or pasted back into NoteAbilityPro.

  4. Within Adobe Illustrator, you can modify the image and save the changes when you are done. All the individual elements of the NoteAbilityPro excerpt can be altered and additional graphics can be added if desired. In this example, the staff and clef colours were changed, a background rectangle was added and some graphic arrows were added.

  5. Create a new multi-page NoteAbilityPro document with 1 staff (1 system, 1 measure) on each page and no clef, no brace and no barline. Hide the time signature (using pull down menu on the Time Signature pane) and change the staff type so that it has no lines (using the Staff Lines pane). You will now have a blank NoteAbilityPro document with 1 invisible staff to which you can associate your graphics.

  6. Drag the PDF file you saved in Adobe Illustrator onto your NoteAbilityPro document (on whichever page you want the image to appear on) and adjust its position by selecting and dragging the bottom-left corner. If you want to alter the size of the image drag the top-right corner of the area. The individual elements in this graphic cannot be altered unless you return to the Illustrator and alter them from there.

    Continue adding more PDF excerpts and other NoteAbilityPro images into the documents. Of course, the music inside the PDF graphics will not playback when you play the score.

    Copying Directly from Adobe Illustrator to NoteAbilityPro

    It is possible to select images in Adobe Illustrator, copy them in Illustrator, and paste them directly into NoteAbilityPro. The pasted image will be located at the Entry Cursor position.

    The pasted image can be moved by dragging the bottom-left corner of the bounding box and can be stretched or compressed by dragging the top-right corner of the bounding box.

    See also

    © Keith A. Hamel 1998-2008 - All Rights Reserved