[MusicTlk] Looking for a way to convert Ultimate Guitar PDF to XML to use with Lime Software

Fri Nov 14 23:05:05 UTC 2025

Hi all,

I can say that lime, which comes with the Goodfield software package or the lighter package of lime aloud is accessible if you want to read something note by note and hear what the music is with a screen reader. For example, it would say first beat of first measure quarter note G. It also plays a midi file of that back to you at the same time or can play the whole piece at one time. This assumes you have a Music XML file that you’re working with in lime.

I will say when I have demoed Goodfield that sharpEye, the scanning software it comes with, does not work with my surface laptop, which is running snapdragon or an arm processor chip.Goodfield has not been updated in a number of years.

Music score.com does have a lot of XML files and I think you can download different parts.

Ultimate guitar definitely has this, but they are in PDF format. However, if you can find a way to convert the PDFs to music XML, it might work for you.
You find a song on ultimate guitar, and you can separate the parts, piano, drums, guitar, horns, etc. 

I hope this helps some.

Beth.
Sent from my iPhone

> On Nov 9, 2025, at 9:15 AM, Rick Thomas via MusicTlk <musictlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Fellow Musicians:
> I play guitar and would like to be able to read music for songs.
> have 0 eyesight so cant read  anything unless it is screen reader accessible, dont read braille.
> I am a retired programmer so familiar with music xml.
> I would like to be able to buy a song with the various parts, guitar, bass and vocals (multiple parts if harmonies).
> Then either use music xml or another methodology to make these parts readable using a screen reader or self voiced and, or, played musically with some narration.
> It is doable I know using musicxml, and now with the advent of AI should be very doable, but cant find anything accessible having been nor being developed for the totally blind community.
> I havent looked at the available projects in perhaps a decade or 2 so saw this posting and thought I'd ask the current state of such a venture.
> Again, I know it can be done but I just havent had the time to do it nor the finances to hire a contract programmer.
> I know there are more experienced audio engineers and programmers out there.
> Anyway, any insights into the state of current music accessibility?
> Rick USA
> 
> ________________________________
> From: MusicTlk <musictlk-bounces at nfbnet.org> on behalf of carcione--- via MusicTlk <musictlk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Friday, November 7, 2025 4:16 PM
> To: 'Music Talk Mailing List for Blind Musicians' <musictlk at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: carcione at access.net <carcione at access.net>
> Subject: Re: [MusicTlk] Looking for a way to convert Ultimate Guitar PDF to XML to use with Lime Software
> 
> I use Goodfeel, and frequently only have a PDF for the music.  I bought another piece of software that creates .tif files.
> The sequence is:
> Open the PDF.
> Print it as a .tif file.  If it only contains 1 piece of music, you can print the whole thing.  If it contains several pieces, you need to print each page.
> Open the .tif file in Sharpeye, which comes with Goodfeel.  From Sharpeye, you can convert and save to musicxml very easily.
> 
> Usually it works well, though when I did it yesterday it skipped a bar.  But I was able to figure out what was missing by looking at the rest of the piece.
> 
> If you want, send me a piece and I'll run it through and send you the musicxml, and you can see how it looks.  And let me know if it's just one piece, or several.
> carcione at access.net.
> Tracy
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MusicTlk <musictlk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Beth Gustin via MusicTlk
> Sent: Friday, November 7, 2025 3:51 PM
> To: musictlk at nfbnet.org
> Cc: Beth Gustin <bethglpc at gmail.com>
> Subject: [MusicTlk] Looking for a way to convert Ultimate Guitar PDF to XML to use with Lime Software
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I am back with yet another question. I am demoing The Feel Good Suite of software, and the band members I play with use Ultimate Guitar when practicing. I noticed all the downloadable scores are in PDF. Is there a way to convert them to XML to use with Lime? Adobe says it does this, but when I tried it with sighted help, it just gave me text, not notation.
> 
> I have been looking at Musescore.com as this does have downloadable XML scores, but does not appear to have many of the songs we play.
> 
> Thoughts/suggestions?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Beth
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