Music layout software was even worse. All notes were treated the same and typographical idioms were ignored for uniformity of appearance. When the user dragged two different notes onto a staff, the software would make the two notes look exactly a-like. But all musicians "know" that notes don't all look a-like. Their appearance depends on other objects in the score (You might not "know" intellectually - but you know in your soul when you view a computer layout software generated score as opposed to an engraved score). Stem length, ledger line appearance, accidentals, etc. etc. all change in appearance in the score depending on a myriad of other variables.
Enter Lilypond. Lilypond is a music engraving application that is based on the LaTeX system of software. Its free and open-source software and runs wonderfully on a host of difference operating systems. It is not difficult to use but can be challenging to learn because it is so in-depth and flexible (You can read more about Lilypond here.
vonMenchhofen Urtext Editions uses Lilypond to perform its engraving. The files are kept in text-form to make them searchable by other computer applications. We love computers and love programming and we love Lilypond. You could learn Lilypond - or you could let us do it for you.
