MeasureMap

Why It Was Built

A lot of music prep work is turning old scans and handwritten scores into Finale or Dorico files. The setup is the slow part. The source PDF usually has no measure numbers, or only sporadic ones, so they'd get hand-written on an iPad or dropped in as annotations in Preview, then rebuilt again inside the notation software: bar numbers, double bar lines, rehearsal marks, and every time and key change, all entered twice.

MeasureMap collapses those first steps into one pass, getting straight to the music faster.

How It Works

1. Open a PDF and set the tempo, key, and time signature.
2. Click each measure on the page. The next number in the sequence lands where you click. No typing into text boxes.
3. Handle real-world numbering. Scores are rarely a clean 1, 2, 3. A dropdown lets you define what comes next: letters, cuts, or insertions like 3a and 3b.
4. Shift-click for rehearsal marks, and drop text notes on anything you want to flag for later.
5. Export three deliverables: an annotated PDF with the numbering in place; a MusicXML file that opens cleanly in Finale, Sibelius, Dorico, or MuseScore with the exact measure count, correct labels, boxed rehearsal marks with double bar lines, every time and key change in the right place, and the systems already laid out about 4 bars per line (never fewer than 3 or more than 6) with rehearsal marks starting each line; and printable blank staff paper for handwriting the chart.

Staff Paper, Ready to Write On

When there's no time for notation software, MeasureMap prints blank staff paper with your bars, boxed rehearsal marks, key and time signatures, tempo marks, and title already engraved — so you can pen a part on the spot and trust that every barline matches the score. Three formats:

1. Single staff — 3–6 bars per line with your choice of treble, bass, or alto (viola) clef. Perfect for a quick lead line or chord chart for the rhythm section off a piano/vocal.
2. Grand staff — braced piano staves, at most 4 bars per line so there's room for two-handed writing.
3. Full orchestra sketch — one big system per page: 10 blank staves with a gutter for penciling in instrument names, a bracketed treble/bass string reduction at the bottom, at most 4 bars per page, measure numbers repeated under every bar, and the current key named on each page.

Who It Helps

Use the original scan to make a clean framework in your notation software, with an annotated PDF to match. If you orchestrate from a piano/vocal, you can work straight from the scan without re-entering music that already exists. The printed staff paper follows the same layout too, so a part you handwrite tonight still lines up with the score you engrave next week.