Best way to recover Encore 3 files

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  • #1793
    Avatar photoPaulus1
    Participant

    I am working for a classical / choral music publisher which has a fairly substantial number of original typesets in Encore 3. They no longer have a computer that can run encore 3, nor a copy of the program. I am told that for a while Encore 4 was able to import the files, and there was a time when they exported well via XML files. After windows XP was introduced that no longer worked properly and was scrapped. Current work is done in Sibelius and Finale

    Can anyone recommend a solution to access the Encore 3 files. It is also important that choral music texts reproduce correctly. We have Encore 3 typesets in German, Russian, Latvian and English.

    I have thought about obtaining a copy of the Encore 3 program and running it in an emulator. Does anyone have experience of that?

    #1794
    Avatar photoAndre Baeck
    Participant

    I’d guess that Encore 455 will read these files correctly. As I recently recovered a copy of it, you could send me a file for checking – andre.baeck(at)gmail.com

    That I remember, E5 cannot read files that old. An intermediate save in E455 or early E5 may be needed.
    Encore does not create XML before E5, and yet is is very basic – and does not include the lyrics.

    As an alternative, Harmony Assistant reads E455 files pretty well. And can generally create a quite good XML. I can check that too.

    #1801
    Avatar photoMike Halloran
    Participant

    “hat I remember, E5 cannot read files that old. An intermediate save in E455 or early E5 may be needed.”

    4.5.5 can often read older files, be saved so that the early version of 5 could read it, then save and be opened by the later version of 5. Getting any of this to work often requires multiple computers and a bit of sneakernet between them. Having given away all my old hardware, I can no longer do this.

    “As an alternative, Harmony Assistant reads E455 files pretty well.”

    In what universe? Also this: “I am working for a classical / choral music publisher”

    Harmony Assistant is not only pretty terrible at reading old Encore files, it’s lyric handling stops after one verse.

    Back to the OP: One of your problems will be that, even if you found a computer old enough to run E3, your original output will look terrible by any standards (printed slurs are ghastly, even in Encore 5). Another is that, even if after a few conversions you get it open in E5, MusicXML export does not handle Lyrics or Expressions — in a choral work?

    You can wait for Encore 6 so that, if Andres is able to import them into E5, you might be able to open, view and export correctly. Since E6 is late, no one knows if/how well that might work. No one.

    If you need to be working on these files now and you have printouts, there are a couple of decent sheet music scanners out there including SmartScore 64 Pro—best with Finale and Dorico or ScanScore Pro—best if Sibelius is the house notation app.

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