# IPad to review scores? sync with Dropbox??



## JohnG (Sep 15, 2019)

Hi all,

I'm in a crazy situation -- does anyone know if you can sync an iPad with Dropbox? 

The crazy part is that I will be traveling to Tokyo for a recording, but I have guys orchestrating in Europe for a second recording that takes place a bit later. I will need to be able to see what the Europe-located orchestrators are doing while I'm in Japan and we've been using Dropbox to coordinate score drafts etc. 

While in my hotel with WiFi in Japan, I would like to be able to open up the PDF scores on the iPad, make notes on the PDF with a stylus (someone said you can do this), and send them back to the orchestrators in Europe for corrections / improvements.

Anyone know if this is practical with an iPad? Or should I instead get the Microsoft iPad equivalent?

Kind regards,

John


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## micrologus (Sep 15, 2019)

Yes you can, if you use the Dropbox app in your iPad. I export the score in Newzik, make my notes on the PDF, save the document and then I export it in Dropbox again.


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## JohnG (Sep 15, 2019)

micrologus said:


> Yes you can, if you use the Dropbox app in your iPad. I export the score in Newzik, make my notes on the PDF, save the document and then I export it in Dropbox again.



Thanks @micrologus -- super helpful!

Never heard of Newzik -- will I need that or can I just look at the PDFs and mark them up?


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## ism (Sep 15, 2019)

You should have a look at LiquidText also (which can connect directly to drop box ), and forScore which is more specific to music.


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## JohnG (Sep 15, 2019)

ism said:


> You should have a look at LiquidText also (which can connect directly to drop box ), and forScore which is more specific to music.



Thanks. Are those apps? I am already working about 18 hours a day and I don't have time to learn a lot of new software before I leave.


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## ptram (Sep 15, 2019)

Another app to annotate PDF files is GoodReader. It is well integrated with DropBox.

Paolo


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## JohnG (Sep 15, 2019)

I take it that simply buying the iPad and being able to write on PDFs free-hand with a stylus is -- just a fantasy? I need another piece of software for that?


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## micrologus (Sep 15, 2019)

JohnG said:


> Thanks @micrologus -- super helpful!
> 
> Never heard of Newzik -- will I need that or can I just look at the PDFs and mark them up?



Newzik is a specific app for marking pdf sheet music, but you can use others apps too. 😃


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## ism (Sep 15, 2019)

JohnG said:


> Thanks. Are those apps? I am already working about 18 hours a day and I don't have time to learn a lot of new software before I leave.




Liquid text is an app.









LiquidText - "PDF Editor with Superpowers" FastCompany


LiquidText revolutionizes reading, analyzing, and annotating documents, and saves you time. - "Most innovative iPad app of the year" Apple - "All you need for deep research" MacWorld




www.liquidtext.net






It's not specific to music, but I do use it for score study. Easiest thing is to just check out the video on the above link, but makes it especially easy, for instance, to:

- do all the usual annotations, notes scribblings on the score, as well as on a parallel page of your notes.


- collect multiple score in a single document, and create link back and forth between your notes and the references within the various scores.


- copy an arbitrarily sized except of a score into the notes page (ie a few bars of an interesting oboe figure), and annotate or scribble on it all you what. This also create an easy link between your notes and that section of the score. (I find this useful to compare different excepts side beside,).


Its even better for academic papers. But definitely worth considering for score annotation.




Forscore is also an app, more specific to scores - the only way its better is that you can synchronize audio to the page turning. The annotation though, and its much harder to learn.

Unless you need to sync audio to scores, I'd suggest liquidtext.


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## ptram (Sep 15, 2019)

JohnG said:


> I take it that simply buying the iPad and being able to write on PDFs free-hand with a stylus is -- just a fantasy? I need another piece of software for that?


I know that you can install the free Dropbox and Adobe Reader apps, and annotate in Reader the PDF documents shared with Dropbox. In general, Reader supports the Apple Pencil. I don't know if the stylus is supported in this particular situation, but being a feature in the Adobe app it should behave this way in any situation.

Paolo


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## Richard Wilkinson (Sep 16, 2019)

I did this with ForScore recently - it's brilliant. Ideally in a year or so Dorico will be ipad-compatible, but for now, I found it useful to grab the PDF score from dropbox, write notes with the apple pencil and save the PDFs back to dropbox for review.


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## JohnG (Sep 16, 2019)

Richard Wilkinson said:


> I did this with ForScore recently - it's brilliant. Ideally in a year or so Dorico will be ipad-compatible, but for now, I found it useful to grab the PDF score from dropbox, write notes with the apple pencil and save the PDFs back to dropbox for review.


Hi Richard -- that's exactly what I need -- just to scribble notes by hand onto a PDF and re-save it in Dropbox. Failing that, at least being able to see the score will be nice.

I'm not trying actually to re-orchestrate anything; I have a team on this project. However, one has all kinds of situations and sometimes it would be great to be able to make actual orchestration changes with the iPad -- transpose a part (say, for a soloist who switches to a transposing instrument), or make other changes. 

I've seen some players and even some conductors working directly from an iPad. I guess one wants a solid music stand or -- oops! -- $1,500 down the drain...


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## JohnG (Sep 16, 2019)

thanks everyone. bought the hardware for a shockingly high price -- holy Toledo!

Now charging it up and waiting to see if I can make it work.

Thanks again -- will be investigating all these apps.


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## paulthomson (Sep 16, 2019)

Another useful alternative is GoodNotes - that’s what I use - import pdf in and make your notes, then send back to Dropbox.


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## JohnG (Sep 17, 2019)

Hi all,

Have tried Liquidtext which is very powerful; need the paid ($30USD) to make it really fly, but it does look that it would. Tried Newzik, which, as @micrologus said, is very specific to music. It does seem to work well.

Going to try @paulthomson and @ptram 's idea of GoodNotes / GoodReader as well.

Thanks all.

John


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## sndmarks (Sep 17, 2019)

I use ForScore for music and GoodNotes for everything else. I save all my scores to dropbox then open them in ForScore for study or production notes. GoodNotes has replaced my pile of legal pads. I suspect once you get it going you won't want to go back.

And FWIW, my brother is a traveling-the-world-and-performing type of concert pianist. Moving his scores for rehearsal/performance to iPad was a monumental improvement overall.


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## JohnG (Sep 23, 2019)

Hi guys -- thanks again for the suggestions. I ended up with Newzik, not necessarily because I tried them all and that was the best, but because it is definitely good for the limited task I set -- marking up scores with a stylus. Works well.

Kind regards,

John


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