Convert ABC files to GIF images HELP!

Subject: RE: Convert ABC files to GIF images HELP!
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Jul 99 - 03:37 PM

I guess there are a lot of people who are reluctant to learn how to use MIDI or ABC software, and some people cater to that by posting tunes as GIFs on the Web. The trouble with GIFs is that about the only thing you can do with them is look at 'em. MIDI and ABC offer a world of flexibility, and there are plenty of MIDI/ABC programs that are cheap (or free) and easy to use - easier to use than a Web browser. Our "Links" page has links to various places where you can download music software.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Convert ABC files to GIF images HELP!
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 27 Jul 99 - 03:27 PM

I'm a little confused. I can well appreciate the desire to have printed scores, but why waste the space required to store them as graphics? DTplayer and Noteworthy Composer will take MIDIs or SongWright files (of ABC, for that matter) and print them directly. A typical SongWright file is a couple of hundred bytes . It will print out in any key, with excellent resolution.

Subject: Easy HTML Tag Guide for Mudcat
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Jul 99 - 01:11 PM

Hi, Sue - I fixed your problem in the message above. The Mudcat Forum is set up so we can use HTML. That's a great advantage to us in many ways, but it takes a while to get used to it. To get your message to look right, I added HTML line break <br> tags, which you can do yourself. If you're posting something long, I suggest you do it in a word processor, and use the "replace" function to put a line break and a carriage return every place where there had been just a carriage return.
Bold type is <b>, closed by </b>
Italics <i></i>
Underline <u></u>
BIG <big></big>
links:

<a href=http://www.mudcat.org/>Click here</a>

I would warn you to use copy-and-paste as much as you can when entering HTML tags, or you may go bonkers from typing all those angle brackets. Hope that helps. If you want to know more, do a Forum Search for HTML as "subject", and you'll find a few interesting threads like this one (click). Welcome to the 'Cat.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Convert ABC files to GIF images HELP!
From: Jeri
Date: 27 Jul 99 - 09:49 AM

I don't know what is causing your file to be so big. I tried saving a tune like this, and it was 12kb. Saved it as a JPEG, it's 47 kb, but it will probably look a lot better.

I think Sue probably gave you good advice. Changing the size of the GIF or the compression would help. Also, cropping it to just the tune and getting rid of empty space and borders will help. I haven't found an easy way to do this and agree with Joe - it would be nice if the program would automatically convert the tunes.

Subject: RE: Convert ABC files to GIF images HELP!
From: SueH
Date: 27 Jul 99 - 06:47 AM

Sorry Anders, I don't know what's happened to the new lines in that nessage. It always looks alright before I send it - I hope you can make it out OK.

Sue

Subject: RE: Convert ABC files to GIF images HELP!
From: SueH
Date: 27 Jul 99 - 06:46 AM

Hi Anders

I don't know why your file is taking up so much room. I just did a series of tests (using the image of a tune which I displayed at 100%, & which took up about three-quarters of an ABC2Win page), & got the following results:

GIF (cut & pasted into either Paint or Paint Shop Pro): 13kb
(did you switch the interlace option off?)
JPG (Paint Shop Pro, lowest compression/highest quality: 118kb
JPG (Paint Shop Pro, highest compression/lowest quality: 19kb
JPG (Paint): 80kb
BMP (Paint Shop Pro): 1.7mb
BMP (Paint): 2.5mb
Monochrome BMP (Paint): 106kb

If you have any other graphics packages, you can copy the bitmap into it in the same way as you would into Paint, & then save it off in a different format.

Good luck!

Sue

Line Breaks <br> added.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Convert ABC files to GIF images HELP!
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Jul 99 - 02:49 AM

Hi - it seems everybody wants to save sheet music as GIF images. Why not take advantage of the smaller file size of JPEG's??? I think there's gotta be a better way. Yet Another Digital Tradition has software that automatically converts our tunes into a variety of formats. Why can't the same be done with ABC's?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Convert ABC files to GIF images HELP!
From: Anders Svensson
Date: 27 Jul 99 - 02:31 AM

Thanks John for your help, but there are a lot of abc tunes I´ll convert, so I think I must learn to do it myself. (about 50 or so..) But thanks again for your kind replay John!!

Jeri

I´ve tried your suggestion with ABC2WIN, and it works, but when I saved the files they turned out to be very large..(about 2 meg..)

any hints?

Thanks all of you for your help Mudcatters!!

Anders

Subject: RE: Convert ABC files to GIF images HELP!
From: Jeri
Date: 27 Jul 99 - 12:32 AM

In ABC2Win:
Select the tune you want
Click on Draw 1
Click on copy/paste
Select copy page bitmap to clipboard

Next, open MS Paint: Start/Programs/AccessoriesPaint
Click on Edit and select Paste

Click on File then select Save As
Go to the bottom box that says save as type and select GIF

Hope this helps!

Subject: RE: Convert ABC files to GIF images HELP!
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 27 Jul 99 - 12:27 AM

Anders, send the ABC's to me and i'll gif them back to you.

Regards
[e-mail]

Subject: Convert ABC files to GIF images HELP!
From: Anders Svensson
Date: 27 Jul 99 - 12:15 AM

Anybody who know how to convert my Abc tunes to Gif images, so I can upload them on my homepage? I´ve downloaded a couple of sharwareprog but I could not find a function to do that..(Abc2win, d.t player etc)

please help me!

Thanks

Anders