The success of both of these depends on the quality of the original (must be clean, no stray marks), the fonts used (mentioned already), and the size (they deliberately print music oversized to limit copying and scanning).

I also have used PDFtoMusic by Myriad. Sometimes that works when SmartScore won’t.


BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.