NAME¶

mscore, musescore — MuseScore 2 sheet music editor

SYNOPSIS¶

DESCRIPTION¶

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).

Running mscore without any extra options launches the full graphical MuseScore program and opens any files specified on the command line.

The options are as follows:

-a | --use-audio driver

Use audio driver: one of jack, alsa, portaudio, pulse

-b | --bitrate bitrate

Set MP3 output bitrate in kbit/s

-c | --config-folder pathname

Override configuration and settings directory

-D | --monitor-resolution DPI

Specify monitor resolution (override autodetection)

-d | --debug

Start MuseScore in debug mode

-E | --install-extension extension file

Install an extension file; soundfonts are loaded by default unless -e is also specified

-e | --experimental

Enable experimental features, such as layers

-F | --factory-settings

Use only the standard built-in presets (“factory settings”) and delete user preferences; compare with the -R option

-f | --force

Ignore score corruption and version mismatch warnings in “converter mode”

-h | --help

Display an overview of invocation instructions

-I | --dump-midi-in

Display all MIDI input on the console

-i | --load-icons

Load icons from the filesystem; useful if you want to edit the MuseScore icons and preview the changes

-j | --job file.json

Process a conversion job (see EXAMPLES below)

-L | --layout-debug

Start MuseScore in layout debug mode

-M | --midi-operations file

Specify MIDI import operations file (see EXAMPLES below)

-m | --no-midi

Disable MIDI input

-n | --new-score

Start with the New Score wizard regardless whether it's enabled or disabled in the user preferences

-O | --dump-midi-out

Display all MIDI output on the console

-o | --export-to file

Export the given (or currently opened) file to the specified output file. The file type depends on the extension of the filename given. This option switches to “converter mode” and avoids the graphical user interface.

-P | --export-score-parts

When converting to PDF with the -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.

-p | --plugin name

Execute the named plugin

-R | --revert-settings

Use only the standard built-in presets (“factory settings”) but do not delete user preferences; compare with the -F option

-r | --image-resolution DPI

Set image resolution for conversion to PNG files.

Default: 300 DPI (actually, the value of “Resolution” of the PNG option group in the Export tab of the preferences)

-S | --style style

Load a style file first; useful for use with the -o option

-s | --no-synthesizer

Disable the integrated software synthesiser

-T | --trim-image margin

Trim exported PNG and SVG images to remove whitespace surrounding the score. The specified 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.

-t | --test-mode

Set test mode flag for all files

-v | --version

Display the name and version of the application without starting the graphical user interface

-w | --no-webview

Disable the web view component in the Start Centre

-x | --gui-scaling factor

Scale the score display and other GUI elements by the specified factor; intended for use with high-resolution displays

--long-version

Display the full name, version and git revision of the application without starting the graphical user interface

--template-mode

Save files in template mode (e.g. without page sizes)

MuseScore supports the automatic Qt command line options (see below).

ENVIRONMENT¶

SKIP_LIBJACK

Set this (the value does not matter) to skip initialisation of the JACK Audio Connection Kit library, in case it causes trouble.

XDG_CONFIG_HOME

User configuration location; defaults to ~/.config if unset.

XDG_DATA_HOME

User data location; defaults to ~/.local/share if unset.

XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR

Location of works the user created with the application; defaults to ~/Documents (or a localised version) and can be set in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/user-dirs.dirs.

Note that MuseScore also supports the normal Qt environment variables such as QT_QPA_GENERIC_PLUGINS, QT_QPA_PLATFORM, QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME, QT_QPA_PLATFORM_PLUGIN_PATH, QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE, DISPLAY, etc.

FILES¶

/usr/share/mscore-2.3/ 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 /usr/share/sounds/sf2/, /usr/share/sounds/sf3/ or /usr/share/sounds/sfz/, respectively, instead.

The per-user data (extensions, plugins, soundfonts, styles, templates) and files (images, scores) are normally installed into subdirectories under $XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR/MuseScore2/ but may be changed in the configuration. Note that snapshot, alpha and beta versions use MuseScore3Development instead of MuseScore2 in all of these paths.

$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.

$XDG_DATA_HOME/data/MuseScore/MuseScore2/ contains updated localisation files downloaded from within the program, plugin information, cached scores, credentials for the musescore.com community site, session information, synthesiser settings, custom key and time signatures and shortcuts. See above for development version paths.

EXAMPLES¶

Convert a score to PDF from the command line:

Run a batch job converting multiple documents:

This requires the file job.json in the current working directory to have content similar to the following:

[
  {
    "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"
    ]
  }
]

The last part of the job would, for example, cause files like “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).

https://musescore.org/sites/musescore.org/files/midi_import_options_0.xml is a sample MIDI import operations file for the -M option.

DIAGNOSTICS¶

The mscore utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

SEE ALSO¶

fluidsynth(1), midicsv(1), timidity(1), qtoptions(7)

https://musescore.org/handbook

Online Handbook, full user manual

https://musescore.org/forum

Support Forum

https://musescore.org/handbook/command-line-options-0

Further documentation of command line options

https://musescore.org/handbook/revert-factory-settings-0

Reverting to factory settings (troubleshooting)

https://musescore.org/project/issues

Project Issue Tracker

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.

http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qguiapplication.html#supported-command-line-options

Documentation of automatic Qt command line options

STANDARDS¶

MuseScore attempts to implement the following standards:

• MusicXML 3.1 (score interchange format)
• SF2 (SoundFont 2.01)
• SF3 (SoundFont with OGG Vorbis-compressed samples)
• SFZ (Sforzato soundfont)
• SMuFL (Standard Music Font Layout 1.18)

HISTORY¶

MuseScore was split off the MusE sequencer in 2002 and has since become the foremost Open Source notation software.

AUTHORS¶

MuseScore is developed by Werner Schweer and others.

This manual page was written by mirabilos ⟨tg@debian.org⟩.

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

has no chance at working because the -reverse is removed by Qt first.

BUGS¶

MuseScore does not honour /etc/papersize.

Probably some more; check the project's bug tracker (cf. SEE ALSO).