Finale Notepad has been a great little tool to open and print Finale files.Until recently the software has always been a free download. Soon the company will begin charging $9.95 for the software.

Bad news? Hardly. Great software for less than 10 bucks is always worth the price. And you can bet now that the company is getting some revenue out of developing it, there will be many more great features added in the future.

Finale has been my notation software of choice since 1989. It is hard to believe I have been using the software for that long. It has come a LONG way since its beginning and the speed of computers has definitely made it easier to use. I remember waiting 5-10 seconds for a score to redraw on the screen!

But I digress.

Read about the new Finale Notepad below. This is the letter from the CEOs of MakeMusic, the makers of Finale.

Dear Finale NotePad user,

We’re writing today to share some exciting news surrounding the upcoming release of Finale NotePad®.

When it was first released in 2000, the initial idea behind NotePad was that it would work like an “Adobe Reader” for music notation, letting anyone open, play, and print any Finale file. Since then more than four million educators, students, and other musicians have downloaded and made excellent use of Finale NotePad.

In the intervening years NotePad’s feature set has been greatly expanded. Recent additions include guitar and bass tablature, MIDI file import/export, step-time entry, and MIDI playback. Even so, we continue to receive requests for additional functionality, and this year NotePad has reached a crossroads.

In the next few weeks we plan to release Finale NotePad 2009 with even more features, including an allnew Expression Tool and the ability to import/export MusicXML files. It will continue to include free online support. At the same time we will begin charging $9.95 for the NotePad 2009 download.

Then, within the month, we will also release our Finale Reader™. The Finale Reader will be able to open, play, and print (but not edit) any Finale family file - as well as MusicXML files - and it will be a free download.

Please note that with the release of the Finale Reader, we will no longer offer previous versions of NotePad from our site. Keep in mind that among the many advantages in NotePad 2009 is its ability to import/export MusicXML files: this means that it can save files that can be opened in earlier versions of Finale.

We hope you agree that these changes represent an excellent balance between free reader software and low-cost notation creation software.

Best wishes in your music making,

John Paulson and Ron Raup
co-CEOs
MakeMusic, Inc.

Visit Finalenotepad.com for more information and download