NIFF
NIFF stands for Notation Interchange File Format. The NIFF project was started in February 1994 to create an open music notation format that would allow exchange of music between various scanning / OCR, editing and typesetting programs. The project was funded by Coda Music Technology, publisher of the well-known Finale music editing suite. The NIFF format itself is based upon RIFF (Resource Interchange File Format); a file structure provided by Microsoft, in which data is divided into Lists, Chunks and Tags. Almost all data in a NIFF file are optional. The level of detail contained can range from just the pitch and timing (akin to MIDI) to a precise page layout, embedded graphics and embedded MIDI information. Programs of note (no pun intended) using NIFF are:
Coda Finale - advanced, and expensive, music editing suite.
Lime (from the CERL sound group) - shareware music editor.
PhotoScore Professional - music OCR software. Several other music programs will import NIFF (e.g. Sibelius(Sibelius_(program))), but are presumably too monopolising to write an open format. The NIFF project homepage is now provided by Dr Alan Belkin, Professor of Music at the University of Montreal, and Special Advisor to the NIFF project, and can be found here:
NIFF Homepage
On this page, the NIFF 6b Specification, the NIFF SDK (a Software Development Kit for reading / writing NIFF files) and various example NIFF files can be found.
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