.\" New manual page for MuseScore 2.3.2
.\" Copyright (c) 2018, 2019
.\"	mirabilos <m@mirbsd.org>
.\" Published under the same terms as MuseScore itself.
.\"-
.Dd April 22, 2025
.Dt @MAN_MSCORE_UPPER@ 1
.Os MuseScore
.Sh NAME@Variables_substituted_by_CMAKE_on_installation@
.Nm mscore@MSCORE_INSTALL_SUFFIX@ ,
.Nm musescore@MSCORE_INSTALL_SUFFIX@
.Nd @MUSESCORE_NAME_VERSION@ sheet music editor
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl deFfhIiLmnOPRstvw
.Op Fl a | Fl \-use\-audio Ar driver
.Op Fl b | Fl \-bitrate Ar bitrate
.Op Fl c | Fl \-config\-folder Ar pathname
.Op Fl D | Fl \-monitor\-resolution Ar DPI
.Op Fl E | Fl \-install\-extension Ar "extension file"
.Op Fl j | Fl \-job Ar file.json
.Op Fl M | Fl \-midi\-operations Ar file
.Op Fl o | Fl \-export\-to Ar file
.Op Fl p | Fl \-plugin Ar name
.Op Fl r | Fl \-image\-resolution Ar DPI
.Op Fl S | Fl \-style Ar style
.Op Fl T | Fl \-trim\-image Ar margin
.Op Fl x | Fl \-gui\-scaling Ar factor
.Op Fl \-debug
.Op Fl \-dump\-midi\-in
.Op Fl \-dump\-midi\-out
.Op Fl \-experimental
.Op Fl \-export\-score\-parts
.Op Fl \-factory\-settings
.Op Fl \-force
.Op Fl \-help
.Op Fl \-layout\-debug
.Op Fl \-load\-icons
.Op Fl \-long\-version
.Op Fl \-new\-score
.Op Fl \-no\-midi
.Op Fl \-no\-synthesizer
.Op Fl \-no\-webview
.Op Fl \-revert\-settings
.Op Fl \-template\-mode
.Op Fl \-test\-mode
.Op Fl \-version
.Op Ar
.\" should be .Ss semantically but that renders badly
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Sh AppImage (portable version), before installation
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Nm ./@PORTABLE_INSTALL_NAME@.AppImage
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Op Cm options
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Op Ar
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm MuseScore
is a Free and Open Source WYSIWYG cross-platform multi-lingual
music composition and notation software, released under the
GNU General Public Licence (GPLv2).
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Ss Special options for the AppImage
@MAN_PORTABLE@This portable version of MuseScore has all of MuseScore's
@MAN_PORTABLE@usual features, but it runs on a wider range of distributions
@MAN_PORTABLE@and does not need to be installed.
@MAN_PORTABLE@There is an option to install it for full integration with
@MAN_PORTABLE@other applications and the desktop environment, though.
.Pp
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Bl -tag -width Ds
@MAN_PORTABLE@.It Cm man , Cm manual , Cm manpage
@MAN_PORTABLE@Displays this manual.
@MAN_PORTABLE@If MuseScore is installed, the manual can be viewed using
@MAN_PORTABLE@the familiar command:
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Pp
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Dl man mscore@MSCORE_INSTALL_SUFFIX@
@MAN_PORTABLE@.It Cm install Oo Fl i Oc Op Ar prefix
@MAN_PORTABLE@Run this without the options to fully integrate MuseScore
@MAN_PORTABLE@with the desktop environment (GNOME, KDE, etc).
@MAN_PORTABLE@This should:
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Bl -bullet
@MAN_PORTABLE@.It
@MAN_PORTABLE@Add MuseScore to your Applications Menu or Launcher,
@MAN_PORTABLE@and add it to the
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Dq Open with...
@MAN_PORTABLE@list of programs.
@MAN_PORTABLE@.It
@MAN_PORTABLE@Move the executable to put it with your other programs.
@MAN_PORTABLE@(This is usually a location within your
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Ev PATH
@MAN_PORTABLE@environment variable.)
@MAN_PORTABLE@.It
@MAN_PORTABLE@Create symbolic links to make it easier to launch
@MAN_PORTABLE@MuseScore from the command line when needed.
@MAN_PORTABLE@.It
@MAN_PORTABLE@Make sure MSCZ, MSCX and MusicXML files are recognised
@MAN_PORTABLE@by the system and the correct icons are displayed.
@MAN_PORTABLE@.El
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Pp
@MAN_PORTABLE@Run as
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Li root ,
@MAN_PORTABLE@e.g. with
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Xr sudo 8 ,
@MAN_PORTABLE@to install for all users.
@MAN_PORTABLE@Advanced users can use the
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Fl i
@MAN_PORTABLE@option to enter interactive mode, and provide an optional
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Ar prefix
@MAN_PORTABLE@to install into a custom location.
@MAN_PORTABLE@Installation is not required to run the program.
@MAN_PORTABLE@.It Cm remove , Cm uninstall Op Ar prefix
@MAN_PORTABLE@Removes icons and resources, and asks whether you would
@MAN_PORTABLE@like to remove the program as well.
@MAN_PORTABLE@(You can delete it yourself later if you wish.)
@MAN_PORTABLE@Scores and personal files are not removed.
@MAN_PORTABLE@If you installed it for all users then it will be removed
@MAN_PORTABLE@for all users.
@MAN_PORTABLE@.It Cm check\-depends , Cm check\-dependencies Op Cm exes\-only
@MAN_PORTABLE@System information for developers.
@MAN_PORTABLE@This detects which software libraries needed by MuseScore
@MAN_PORTABLE@are not available from the system and so must be packaged
@MAN_PORTABLE@alongside the MuseScore portable version.
@MAN_PORTABLE@.El
@MAN_PORTABLE@.Ss Normal MuseScore options
Running
.Nm
without any extra options launches the full graphical MuseScore program
and opens any files specified on the command line.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl a | Fl \-use\-audio Ar driver
Use audio driver: one of
.Cm jack ,
.Cm alsa ,
.Cm portaudio ,
.Cm pulse
.It Fl b | Fl \-bitrate Ar bitrate
Set MP3 output bitrate in kbit/s
.It Fl c | Fl \-config\-folder Ar pathname
Override configuration and settings directory
.It Fl D | Fl \-monitor\-resolution Ar DPI
Specify monitor resolution (override autodetection)
.It Fl d | Fl \-debug
Start MuseScore in debug mode
.It Fl E | Fl \-install\-extension Ar "extension file"
Install an extension file; soundfonts are loaded by default unless
.Fl e
is also specified
.It Fl e | Fl \-experimental
Enable experimental features, such as layers
.It Fl F | \-factory\-settings
Use only the standard built-in presets
.Pq Dq factory settings
and delete user preferences; compare with the
.Fl R
option
.It Fl f | \-force
Ignore score corruption and version mismatch warnings in
.Dq converter mode
.It Fl h | \-help
Display an overview of invocation instructions
.It Fl I | \-dump\-midi\-in
Display all MIDI input on the console
.It Fl i | \-load\-icons
Load icons from the filesystem; useful if you want to
edit the MuseScore icons and preview the changes
.It Fl j | Fl \-job Ar file.json
Process a conversion job (see
.Sx EXAMPLES
below)
.It Fl L | \-layout\-debug
Start MuseScore in layout debug mode
.It Fl M | Fl \-midi\-operations Ar file
Specify MIDI import operations file (see
.Sx EXAMPLES
below)
.It Fl m | \-no\-midi
Disable MIDI input
.It Fl n | \-new\-score
Start with the New Score wizard regardless whether
it's enabled or disabled in the user preferences
.It Fl O | \-dump\-midi\-out
Display all MIDI output on the console
.It Fl o | Fl \-export\-to Ar file
Export the given (or currently opened) file to the specified output
.Ar file .
The file type depends on the extension of the filename given.
This option switches to
.Dq converter mode
and avoids the graphical user interface.
.It Fl P | \-export\-score\-parts
When converting to PDF with the
.Fl o
option, append each part's pages to the created PDF file.
If the score has no parts, all default parts will
temporarily be generated automatically.
.It Fl p | Fl \-plugin Ar name
Execute the named plugin
.It Fl R | \-revert\-settings
Use only the standard built-in presets
.Pq Dq factory settings
but do not delete user preferences; compare with the
.Fl F
option
.It Fl r | Fl \-image\-resolution Ar DPI
Set image resolution for conversion to PNG files.
.Pp
Default: 300 DPI (actually, the value of
.Dq Resolution
of the PNG option group in the Export tab of the preferences)
.It Fl S | Fl \-style Ar style
Load a style file first; useful for use with the
.Fl o
option
.It Fl s | \-no\-synthesizer
Disable the integrated software synthesiser
.It Fl T | Fl \-trim\-image Ar margin
Trim exported PNG and SVG images to remove whitespace
surrounding the score.
The specified
.Ar margin ,
in pixels, will be retained (use 0 for a tightly cropped image).
When exporting to SVG, this option only works with single-page scores.
.It Fl t | \-test\-mode
Set test mode flag for all files
.It Fl v | \-version
Display the name and version of the application
without starting the graphical user interface
.It Fl w | \-no\-webview
Disable the web view component in the Start Centre
.It Fl x | Fl \-gui\-scaling Ar factor
Scale the score display and other GUI elements by the specified
.Ar factor ;
intended for use with high-resolution displays
.It Fl \-long\-version
Display the full name, version and git revision of the application
without starting the graphical user interface
.It Fl \-template\-mode
Save files in template mode (e.g. without page sizes)
.El
.Pp
MuseScore supports the automatic Qt command line options (see below).
.Ss Batch conversion job JSON format
The argument to the
.Fl j
option must be the pathname of a file comprised of a valid JSON
document honouring the following specification:
.Bl -bullet
.It
The top-level element must be a JSONArray, which may be empty.
.It
Each array element must be a JSONObject with the following keys:
.Bl -tag -width plugin
.It Li in
Value is the name of the input file (score to convert), as JSONString.
.It Li plugin
Value is the filename of a plugin (with the .qml extension), which
will be read from either the global or per-user plugin path and
executed before the conversion output happens, as JSONString.
Optional, but at least one of
.Li plugin
and
.Li out
.Em must
be given.
.It Li out
Value is the conversion output target, as defined below.
Optional, but at least one of
.Li plugin
and
.Li out
.Em must
be given.
.El
.It
The conversion output target may be a filename (with extension,
which decided the format to convert to), as JSONString.
.It
The conversion output target may be a JSONArray of filenames as
JSONString, as above, which will cause the score to be written
to multiple output files (in multiple output formats) sequentially,
without being closed, re-opened and re-processed in between.
.It
If the conversion output target is a JSONArray, one or more of
its elements may also be, each, a JSONArray of two JSONStrings
(called first and second half in the following description).
This will cause part extraction: for each such two-tuple, all
extant parts of the score will be saved
.Em individually ,
with filenames being composed by concatenating the first half,
the name (title) of the part, and the second half.
The resulting string must be a valid filename (with extension,
determining the output format).
If a score has no parts (excerpts) defined, this will be
silently ignored without error.
.It
Valid file extensions for output are:
.Bl -tag -width musicxml
.It Li flac
Free Lossless Audio Codec (compressed audio)
.It Li mid
standard MIDI file
.It Li mlog
internal file sanity check log (JSON)
.It Li mp3
MPEG Layer III (lossy compressed audio)
.It Li mpos
measure positions (XML)
.It Li mscx
uncompressed MuseScore file
.It Li mscz
compressed MuseScore file
.It Li musicxml
uncompressed MusicXML file
.It Li mxl
compressed MusicXML file
.It Li ogg
OGG Vorbis (lossy compressed audio)
.It Li pdf
portable document file (print)
.It Li png
portable network graphics (image)
.Pp
Individual files, one per score page, with a hyphen-minus followed
by the page number placed before the file extension, will be generated.
.It Li spos
segment positions (XML)
.It Li svg
scalable vector graphics (image)
.It Li wav
RIFF Waveform (uncompressed audio)
.It Li xml
uncompressed MusicXML file
.El
.El
.Pp
See below for an example.
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Ev MSCORE_ASSERT_ABORT
Assertion failures are fatal if set (the value does not matter).
.It Ev SKIP_LIBJACK
Set this (the value does not matter) to skip initialisation
of the JACK Audio Connection Kit library, in case it causes trouble.
.It Ev XDG_CONFIG_HOME
User configuration location; defaults to
.Pa \(ti/.config
if unset.
.It Ev XDG_DATA_HOME
User data location; defaults to
.Pa \(ti/.local/share
if unset.
.It Ev XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR
Location of works the user created with the application; defaults to
.Pa \(ti/Documents
(or a localised version) and can be set in
.Pa $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/user-dirs.dirs .
.El
.Pp
Note that MuseScore also supports the normal Qt environment variables such as
.Ev QT_QPA_GENERIC_PLUGINS ,
.Ev QT_QPA_PLATFORM ,
.Ev QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME ,
.Ev QT_QPA_PLATFORM_PLUGIN_PATH ,
.Ev QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE ,
.Ev DISPLAY ,
etc.
.Sh FILES
.Pa @CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX@/@Mscore_SHARE_NAME@@Mscore_INSTALL_NAME@
contains the application support data (demos, instruments, localisation,
system-wide plugins, soundfonts, styles, chords, templates and wallpapers).
In the Debian packages, system-wide soundfonts are installed into
.Pa /usr/share/sounds/sf2/ ,
.Pa /usr/share/sounds/sf3/
or
.Pa /usr/share/sounds/sfz/ ,
respectively, instead.
.Pp
The per-user data (extensions, plugins, soundfonts, styles, templates) and
files (images, scores) are normally installed into subdirectories under
.Pa $XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR/MuseScore2/
but may be changed in the configuration.
Note that snapshot, alpha and beta versions use
.Pa MuseScore3Development
instead of
.Pa MuseScore2
in all of these paths.
.Pp
.Pa $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/MuseScore/MuseScore2.ini
contains the user preferences, list of recently used files and their
locations, window sizes and positions, etc.
See above for development version paths.
.Pp
.Pa $XDG_DATA_HOME/data/MuseScore/MuseScore2/
contains updated localisation files downloaded from within the
program, plugin information, cached scores, credentials for the
.Pa musescore.com
community site, session information, synthesiser settings, custom
key and time signatures and shortcuts.
See above for development version paths.
.Sh EXAMPLES
Convert a score to PDF from the command line:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
QT_QPA_PLATFORM=offscreen; export QT_QPA_PLATFORM  # sh
setenv QT_QPA_PLATFORM offscreen                   # csh
.Nm Fl o No "\(aqMy Score.pdf\(aq" "\(aqMy Score.mscz\(aq"
.Ed
.Pp
Run a batch job converting multiple documents:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
QT_QPA_PLATFORM=offscreen; export QT_QPA_PLATFORM  # sh
setenv QT_QPA_PLATFORM offscreen                   # csh
.Nm Fl j No job.json
.Ed
.Pp
This requires the file
.Pa job.json
in the current working directory to have content
similar to the following:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
[
  {
    "in": "Reunion.mscz",
    "out": "Reunion\-coloured.pdf",
    "plugin": "colornotes.qml"
  },
  {
    "in": "Reunion.mscz",
    "out": [
      "Reunion.pdf",
      [ "Reunion (part for ", ").pdf" ],
      "Reunion.musicxml",
      "Reunion.mid"
    ]
  },
  {
    "in": "Piece with excerpts.mscz",
    "out": [
      "Piece with excerpts (Partitura).pdf",
      [ "Piece with excerpts (part for ", ").pdf" ],
      "Piece with excerpts.mid"
    ]
  }
]
.Ed
.Pp
The last part of the job would, for example, cause files like
.Dq Pa "Piece with excerpts (part for Violin).pdf"
to be generated alongside the conductor's partitura and a MIDI
file with the full orchestra sound, whereas the equivalent part
of the Reunion conversion will be silently ignored (because the
Reunion piece (a MuseScore demo) has no excerpts defined).
.Pp
.Pa https://musescore.org/sites/musescore.org/files/midi_import_options_0.xml
is a sample MIDI import operations file for the
.Fl M
option.
.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
.Ex -std
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr fluidsynth 1 ,
.Xr midicsv 1 ,
.Xr timidity 1 ,
.Xr qtoptions 7
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Pa https://musescore.org/handbook
Online Handbook, full user manual
.It Pa https://musescore.org/forum
Support Forum
.It Pa https://musescore.org/handbook/command\-line\-options\-0
Further documentation of command line options
.It Pa https://musescore.org/handbook/revert\-factory\-settings\-0
Reverting to factory settings (troubleshooting)
.It Pa https://musescore.org/project/issues
Project Issue Tracker
.Pp
Please check first to if the bug you're encountering
has already been reported.
If you just need help with something, then please use the
support forum (see above) instead.
.It Pa http://doc.qt.io/qt\-5/qguiapplication.html#supported\-command\-line\-options
Documentation of automatic Qt command line options
.El
.Sh STANDARDS
MuseScore attempts to implement the following standards:
.Bl -bullet
.It
MusicXML 3.1 (score interchange format)
.It
SF2 (SoundFont 2.01)
.It
SF3 (SoundFont with OGG Vorbis-compressed samples)
.It
SFZ (Sforzato soundfont)
.It
SMuFL (Standard Music Font Layout 1.18)
.El
.Sh HISTORY
MuseScore was split off the MusE sequencer in 2002 and has since
become the foremost Open Source notation software.
.Sh AUTHORS
MuseScore is developed by Werner Schweer and others.
.Pp
This manual page was written by
.An mirabilos Aq tg@debian.org .
.Sh CAVEATS
The automatic Qt command line options are removed from the
argument vector before the application has a chance at option
processing; this means that an invocation like
.Pp
.Dl Nm Fl S Ar \-reverse
.Pp
has no chance at working because the
.Fl reverse
is removed by Qt first.
.Sh BUGS
MuseScore does not honour
.Pa /etc/papersize .
.Pp
Probably some more; check the project's bug tracker (cf.\&
.Sx SEE ALSO ) .