Right here! The current price is $4.99, though keep in mind that the price may increase as major new features are added. We don’t believe in using sales and gimmicks to push people into impulse purchases, so you don’t have to worry about the app suddenly going on sale the day after you buy it.

You can view virtually any PDF file with forScore, and use a wide range of free applications for every major platform to convert other files to the PDF format. As of version 2.3, forScore also works with password-protected files. Note that some PDF files are restricted and require special software, so we can’t guarantee compatibility.

Use forScore’s built-in browser to save PDF files directly from the web, download files from your DropBox account, transfer files over from a computer using iTunes’ File Sharing feature, or use the “open with…” function found in many iPad apps. If you’ve got an iPad 2, you can even take pictures of your score and save them as a new PDF!

Most scanner software will allow you to create a PDF file directly from individual page scans, but keep in mind that forScore’s performance can vary widely based on the characteristics of the files you’re using. Keep your file sizes low by choosing a dpi of around 100-150 (up to 300 if you’ll need to zoom in often to see small details), and consider using a grayscale setting since color information typically isn’t very important for score. Each combination of scanner hardware and software is different, so try a few different test files to find the best balance between quality and performance to suit your own needs.

If you’re using an image-based PDF file, it’s possible the images were compressed using the JPEG2000 specification. At this time, iOS cannot decode these images properly, but re-saving the file with a different specification should resolve the issue.

Unlike the original release, newer versions of forScore (2.0 and later) don’t include any scores by default, but instead includes a browser link to the forStore, a webpage where you can download any or all of these scores for free. That way, you don’t have to keep files you aren’t going to use, and the app’s overall size is dramatically smaller.

We’ve seen libraries upwards of 15-20GB, and most tasks aren’t any slower than usual. Making changes to your library (adding or deleting files, changing the metadata for one of your scores) will take longer, but flipping through pages, navigating through the menus, and opening files should all be relatively consistent.

Several things can impact performance for certain files. The most common reason why a file may be sluggish compared to others is the file size per page. If you’re scanning in your own files, try to use a relatively low DPI—remember that the iPad’s screen displays much less information than a real piece of paper does. Some other files can perform poorly but also have very small file sizes: this is generally due to the complication of the file itself. If the PDF file contains a large number of images or elements, even very small ones, it can take the iPad some time to sort it all out. This is true for every PDF reader for iPad that we’ve seen, even Apple’s built-in apps, and is simply a limitation of the iPad’s hardware itself.

When you add files to your iTunes library, those files are intended to work with Apple’s own apps on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. That’s why when you sync music to your iPad from iTunes, it shows up in the iPod app specifically, rather than some other third-party app that you have. Your pictures show up in Apple’s “Photos” app, your bookmarks show up in the “Safari” app, and your books end up in the “iBooks” app. Basically, syncing is how you get the kinds of content that the iTunes store sells over to your device for use with Apple’s apps. Apple doesn’t let apps like ours access these files for security reasons, so there’s a second way for you to add content that we can use:

In iTunes, Apple provides a file sharing panel that lets you interact with individual apps by adding files, removing them, or saving them back to your computer. There’s no syncing involved in this part of the process—the file sharing panel lets you interact with third-party apps directly whenever your iPad is connected via USB. That’s where you’ll need to go to add files to forScore (you can find our more about the file sharing panel in the first few pages of our user guide).

Swipe your finger across an item in the menu to show the “Delete” button, then tap it to remove a file. You can also delete files through iTunes by selecting the file from the File Sharing list, and pressing the delete key.

As long the pages are sequential, yes. Just enter in the number of beats per page, activate autoturn, and start the metronome. Once the metronome reaches the specified number, the page will flip.

You can create links between pages and jump to that exact spot with a single tap—forScore flashes a small signal showing you exactly where to begin playing. And, with forScore 3 and later, you can also rearrange, duplicate, and remove pages of your scores as needed (great for use with page turners).

In the score menu, the grey or blue arrow button off to the right-hand side of any file will take you to the metadata editor, where you can change the title, composer, genre, difficulty, rating, and more. From the main screen, you can also tap the title in the menu bar for quick access to the current file’s information.

If you launch forScore while a song is already playing in the music app, forScore won’t interfere. You can use the media box to control playback of that track just like you normally would, and you can press the stop button at any time to interrupt playback and give control of the media box back to forScore.

All files can be viewed by composer, keyword, genre, date added, difficulty, rating, or organized manually in setlists.

File sharing through iTunes is not designed to work with folders, plain and simple. That’s why we’ve taken a more dynamic approach by allowing you to tag and find your scores by composer, genre, difficulty, rating, and an unlimited number of keywords. If you prefer, you can also use the setlist function to group files arbitrarily.

Check out this page for instructions and a PSD template file to help you get started: forscoreapp.com/signatures

We’re keeping a close eye on the overall tablet market and Android in particular, but for now we’re focused exclusively on developing for the iPad. We have limited resources just like any company, and we’d rather have one great product than two or three versions that aren’t the best that they can be. We think that the iPad is where forScore belongs and can really shine.

There are several options available, some of which are listed on our extras page. If you decide to purchase AirTurn’s BT-105 page turner, be sure to check our promo page first!

In forScore’s settings panel, turn the “Auto-lock” option to OFF to disable the iPad’s sleep timer as long as the app is open.

iOS disables the virtual on-screen keyboard whenever a page turner is connected. If you’re using forScore 2.6 or later, use the “force virtual keyboard” setting to override this default behavior. Otherwise, you must disconnect your page turner to use the virtual keyboard.

The easiest way to share files with nearby forScore users is with the Bluetooth file sharing feature in version 2.0 or later. If you need to share a file with a forScore user that isn’t close by, you can also email a forScore-specific “4SC” container file that includes all metadata and annotations in addition to the original PDF.

If you prefer, or if the recipient isn’t using forScore, you can print or email either the original PDF (without any additional information), or a new PDF file (with permanent annotations and some kinds of metadata.)

While we’re working hard to add this feature in the future, forScore does not currently have a two-page view. You may be able to create two-page PDFs on your computer, and then transfer them over to the iPad using the instructions on this page.

In some cases, transferring a large number of files to your iPad through iTunes can cause the iPad to run low on memory or to restart. Because these file transfers are handled by iTunes and iOS directly, we have no control over how they work or how to improve them. Until Apple fixes these problems, the easiest way to avoid this is to copy your files over in smaller batches.

If you’ve experienced this issue, we encourage you to submit feedback to Apple so that they can gauge the extent of the problem and respond accordingly.

With iOS 4 or later, the multitasking feature keeps recently used apps in memory even after you close them. Over time, they can start to slow down your iPad so quitting the ones that you’re not currently using can help. If you’re not sure how to close apps, see Apple’s support article for instructions.

Your feature requests are how we make forScore better, so feel free to send us your thoughts! In our first 15 months, we’ve released over 40 updates (many of them introducing new features) and there’s no end in sight. All too often iPad apps toss in as many features as they can without taking the time to test them thoroughly. We know that our customers would rather have one feature that works than 10 that don’t, and we work every day to balance features and stability.