Sibelius is offering a $99 jumpover from registered Finale users. I am about to embark on an important project. Most of my files are already done (in Finale), but I have to get rid of irritating artifacts and errors that Finale basically forced me to create (because it was too time-consuming to get rid of them. like phantom rests and such).
Is it worth spending the money, learning the new platform, so to speak, or is the program just complicated in a different way?
Sound off, thanks.
I switched to Sibelius G7 a few years ago from Finale… It has its quirks too but I find it a lot easier to get the desired results. I think it is probably complete enough to do what you want, I think you don’t necessarily need the full version, but some of the guitarisms are a bit silly and annoying. I can’t offer much head to head comparison but I just found that I get things done much more quickly and with fewer errors in it. I think there may be a demo available, but I’m not sure.
Actually, a key issue is whether you can import from one to the other. I have no idea.
For my articles in a harmonica mag I email notation files that I did in Finale Notepad (the cheapie version - they end in the file extension .MUS) to the music editor. I know for a fact that she somehow imports them into Sibelius to edit them/tidy them up (very necessary in my case 
). I haven’t a clue how she does it, but it can be done. 
Yeah, part of the jumpover offer is that it imports Finale files…
I really, really hate Finale, but that’s because I have spent so much time learning to use it. I am reluctant to go back into an even steeper learning curve…
See for yourself
http://www.sibelius.com/cgi-bin/download/get.pl?com=sh&prod=sibdemo
There’s a free 30-day, fully featured trial, I believe.