Importing and scanning sheet music

Two buttons on the Projects screen — Import (I) and Scan (S) — open the same dialog; either one accepts every file type below, they just lead with a different starting view. Dropping a file anywhere on the Projects screen works the same way, without pressing either button first.

Import always creates a new score — it never replaces or merges into one you already have open.

MusicXML

A .musicxml, .xml, or .mxl file parses immediately. Any warnings from the conversion are listed (duplicates collapsed with a count), then Open Score loads it.

MIDI

A .mid/.midi file opens a live-preview dialog instead of importing straight away: a quantization resolution (down to a 32nd note), optional dotted notes and triplet detection, a minimum note duration, and how tracks map to instruments (kept as separate parts, merged onto one grand staff, or split by pitch at an adjustable point). The notation preview on the right updates as you change any of these, so you can see the result before committing to it.

Photo or PDF (scanning)

A photo or PDF page runs through on-device optical music recognition (OMR) — the recognition model runs in your browser, so a page never leaves your device. Progress is shown as real detection stages over the source image (not a generic spinner), and a PDF’s pages are rasterized and scanned automatically.

Scanning a photo is a multi-page flow: after one page finishes, add another (camera or file) before finishing, and the measure count grows as each page is added. Either way, you land on an editable preview of the assembled score before accepting it — expect to need some correction afterward, the same as any OMR system.

A few things to know

• Accepted files: MusicXML/MXL, MIDI, PDF, and images (PNG/JPEG/WebP/BMP/ TIFF) — up to 50 MB.
• A “Take Photo” option appears automatically if your device has a camera.
• If a file isn’t recognized as one of the above, you’ll see exactly which extension failed rather than a generic error.

Tips

• Bringing a score back out? See Exporting your score.
• OMR does best with a clean, well-lit, flat page — a phone photo works, but a straight-on shot beats an angled one.