Choral Public Domain Library

Scores with more than 10 A4 sized pages can be daunting to handle, especially for the conductor and musicians. I prefer single sided A3 landscape size(two A4 pages per sheet), when I’m accompanying and double sided booklet A3 landscape size, when singing.
The only thing that keeps me from posting double sided A3 is, many users of this site might not have access to a capable printer. I want your opinion on this.

Many thanks,

I have two printers: an HP 1220C Deskjet (inkjet) and an HP 2605dn Color Laserjet. I don't normally use A4/A3 papers common in Europe, but instead I use Letter/Tabloid papers (8.5 x 11 inches and 11 x 17 inches, respectively).

The 1220C can accommodate paper up to 13 X 19 inches, so I use it whenever I print on Tabloid paper, either 2-up (side-by-side) landscape (for accompaniments) or booklet (for singing). It is not a full duplex printer, so I have to make two printing passes to get print on both sides of the paper.

The 2605dn prints only on Letter (or A4, I think), but it is a full duplex printer and can print on both sides automatically.

Since I print most of my own scores directly from inside Finale, I have lots of flexibility with these. On the other hand, when printing PDFs, I have to be a bit more careful in selecting how to print scores, but there is sufficient flexibility in Acrobat Reader to do print (on my 1220C) 2-up on Tabloid paper either landscape or booklet style.

My general impression is that one need only publish A4 (or Letter) size PDF files, and leave it to the user to decide how best to print the result, since the user has complete control over how it is printed, no matter whether the printer can handle large paper or not, or can do full duplex (2-sided) printing or not. I would guess that very few people own or have access to a printer which can handle large paper (A3 or Tabloid) paper sizes.

Edit added: By the way, I can only vote once in the poll, so I selected the A3 inkjet single sided option, although I could also have chosen the A4 duplex laser option, too.

Chuck

I personally have/use a letter-sized (or A4 sized, if I were to live on a different continent) laser printer--a Brother HL-5050, which I've been nothing but pleased with. That said, I don't consider the engraved size of a score to be an enormous concern for a site such as this. For sure, it is convenient to have the layout for your preferred output all set (and, as you observe, the preferred size may vary depending upon the score and what one wishes to do with it). However, it's not a big deal to scale the printout to fit if needed, and I could--with perhaps a bit of work and annoyance--get access to larger printers if necessary or helpful.

Duplexing manually is a bit irksome, but only a bit. Putting the printouts in a binder and taping or stapling or otherwise attaching facing sheets can also serve like duplexing, whilst giving a beefier page to grab and flip. (The community band I'm a part of each summer keeps the music in large binders with individual sheet protectors, generally with two sheets back-to-back in each.)

Far more important, at least for trombone playing, is to have the page divisions--at least alternate page divisions--occur at a rest if at all possible. For keyboard and especially vocal scores, that's not quite such an important concern. Pianists often can get page turners to help them, but trombonists rarely do!

A4 duplex, but it's not an option on the survey.

The answer to all these printing problems is to get a simple comb binding machine. Back-to-back printing from pdf is easy with Adobe reader using the odd pages/even pages option on any printer and the comb bound pages open flat making things much easier for the keyboard player or conductor, even with scores of more that 100 pages.

I haven't access to anything larger than A4 (like the overwhelming majority of users in Europe IMHO).

Mike Gibsonn wrote:The answer to all these printing problems is to get
familiar with Proextender and a simple comb binding machine. Back-to-back printing from pdf is easy with Adobe reader using the odd pages/even pages option on any printer and the comb bound pages open flat making things much easier for the keyboard player or conductor, even with scores of more that 100 pages.

A4 laser for me connected to my home computer but at my office I've got a printer and copier that can do anything up to A1. I think the majority of people don't have anything that can print larger than A4 though.

I am Using HP LaserJet P1007 A4 Laser Printer.Its Print speed black (normal, A4)
Up to 14 ppm.Maximum memory:-2 MB embedded in SIP package, 16 Kb NVRAM.
Media types supported: Paper (laser, plain, photo, rough, vellum), envelopes, labels, cardstock, transparencies, postcards