1MSCORE(1) BSD General Commands Manual MSCORE(1)
2
4 mscore, musescore — MuseScore 3 sheet music editor
5
7 mscore [-deFfhIiLmnOPRstvw] [-a | --use-audio driver]
8 [-b | --bitrate bitrate] [-c | --config-folder pathname]
9 [-D | --monitor-resolution DPI]
10 [-E | --install-extension extension file] [-j | --job file.json]
11 [-M | --midi-operations file] [-o | --export-to file]
12 [-p | --plugin name] [-r | --image-resolution DPI]
13 [-S | --style style] [-T | --trim-image margin]
14 [-x | --gui-scaling factor] [--debug] [--diff] [--dump-midi-in]
15 [--dump-midi-out] [--experimental] [--export-score-parts]
16 [--factory-settings] [--force] [--help] [--layout-debug]
17 [--load-icons] [--long-version] [--new-score] [--no-fallback-font]
18 [--no-midi] [--no-synthesizer] [--no-webview] [--raw-diff]
19 [--revert-settings] [--run-test-script] [--score-media]
20 [--score-mp3] [--score-parts-pdf] [--template-mode] [--test-mode]
21 [--version] [file ...]
22
24 MuseScore is a Free and Open Source WYSIWYG cross-platform multi-lingual
25 music composition and notation software, released under the GNU General
26 Public Licence (GPLv2).
27 Running mscore without any extra options launches the full graphical Mus‐
29 eScore program and opens any files specified on the command line.
30 The options are as follows:
32 -a | --use-audio driver
34 Use audio driver: one of jack, alsa, portaudio, pulse
35 -b | --bitrate bitrate
37 Set MP3 output bitrate in kbit/s
38 -c | --config-folder pathname
40 Override configuration and settings directory
41 -D | --monitor-resolution DPI
43 Specify monitor resolution (override autodetection)
44 -d | --debug
46 Start MuseScore in debug mode
47 -E | --install-extension extension file
49 Install an extension file; soundfonts are loaded by default
50 unless -e is also specified
51 -e | --experimental
53 Enable experimental features, such as layers
54 -F | --factory-settings
56 Revert all settings, shortcuts, workspaces, extensions, transla‐
57 tions, etc. to factory defaults; compare with the -R option
58 -f | --force
60 Ignore score corruption and version mismatch warnings in
61 “converter mode”
62 -h | --help
64 Display an overview of invocation instructions
65 -I | --dump-midi-in
67 Display all MIDI input on the console
68 -i | --load-icons
70 Load icons from the filesystem; useful if you want to edit the
71 MuseScore icons and preview the changes
72 -j | --job file.json
74 Process a conversion job (see EXAMPLES below)
75 -L | --layout-debug
77 Start MuseScore in layout debug mode
78 -M | --midi-operations file
80 Specify MIDI import operations file (see EXAMPLES below)
81 -m | --no-midi
83 Disable MIDI input
84 -n | --new-score
86 Start with the New Score wizard regardless whether it's enabled
87 or disabled in the user preferences
88 -O | --dump-midi-out
90 Display all MIDI output on the console
91 -o | --export-to file
93 Export the given (or currently opened) file to the specified out‐
94 put file. The file type depends on the extension of the filename
95 given. This option switches to “converter mode” and avoids the
96 graphical user interface.
97 -P | --export-score-parts
99 When converting to PDF with the -o option, append each part's
100 pages to the created PDF file. If the score has no parts, all
101 default parts will temporarily be generated automatically.
102 -p | --plugin name
104 Execute the named plugin
105 -R | --revert-settings
107 Revert user preferences to factory default but retain shortcuts,
108 workspaces, extensions, translations, etc.; compare with -F.
109 -r | --image-resolution DPI
111 Set image resolution for conversion to PNG files.
112 Default: 300 DPI (actually, the value of “Resolution” of the PNG
114 option group in the Export tab of the preferences)
115 -S | --style style
117 Load a style file first; useful for use with the -o option
118 -s | --no-synthesizer
120 Disable the integrated software synthesiser
121 -T | --trim-image margin
123 Trim exported PNG and SVG images to remove whitespace surrounding
124 the score. The specified margin, in pixels, will be retained
125 (use 0 for a tightly cropped image). When exporting to SVG, this
126 option only works with single-page scores.
127 -t | --test-mode
129 Set test mode flag for all files
130 -v | --version
132 Display the name and version of the application without starting
133 the graphical user interface
134 -w | --no-webview
136 Disable the web view component in the Start Centre
137 -x | --gui-scaling factor
139 Scale the score display and other GUI elements by the specified
140 factor; intended for use with high-resolution displays
141 --diff Print a conditioned diff between the given scores
143 --long-version
145 Display the full name, version and git revision of the applica‐
146 tion without starting the graphical user interface
147 --no-fallback-font
149 Don't use Bravura as fallback musical font
150 --raw-diff
152 Print a raw diff between the given scores
153 --run-test-script
155 Run script tests listed in the command line arguments
156 --score-media
158 Export all media (except MP3) for a given score as a single JSON
159 document to stdout
160 --score-mp3
162 Generates an MP3 for the given score and exports it as a single
163 JSON document to stdout
164 --score-parts-pdf
166 Generates parts data for the given score and exports it as a sin‐
167 gle JSON document to stdout
168 --template-mode
170 Save files in template mode (e.g. without page sizes)
171 MuseScore supports the automatic Qt command line options (see below).
173 Batch conversion job JSON format
175 The argument to the -j option must be the pathname of a file comprised of
176 a valid JSON document honouring the following specification:
177 · The top-level element must be a JSONArray, which may be empty.
179 · Each array element must be a JSONObject with the following keys:
181 in Value is the name of the input file (score to convert), as
183 JSONString.
184 plugin Value is the filename of a plugin (with the .qml extension),
186 which will be read from either the global or per-user plugin
187 path and executed before the conversion output happens, as
188 JSONString. Optional, but at least one of plugin and out
189 must be given.
190 out Value is the conversion output target, as defined below.
192 Optional, but at least one of plugin and out must be given.
193 · The conversion output target may be a filename (with extension, which
195 decided the format to convert to), as JSONString.
196 · The conversion output target may be a JSONArray of filenames as JSON‐
198 String, as above, which will cause the score to be written to multi‐
199 ple output files (in multiple output formats) sequentially, without
200 being closed, re-opened and re-processed in between.
201 · If the conversion output target is a JSONArray, one or more of its
203 elements may also be, each, a JSONArray of two JSONStrings (called
204 first and second half in the following description). This will cause
205 part extraction: for each such two-tuple, all extant parts of the
206 score will be saved individually, with filenames being composed by
207 concatenating the first half, the name (title) of the part, and the
208 second half. The resulting string must be a valid filename (with
209 extension, determining the output format). If a score has no parts
210 (excerpts) defined, this will be silently ignored without error.
211 · Valid file extensions for output are:
213 flac Free Lossless Audio Codec (compressed audio)
215 metajson various score metadata (JSON)
217 mid standard MIDI file
219 mlog internal file sanity check log (JSON)
221 mp3 MPEG Layer III (lossy compressed audio)
223 mpos measure positions (XML)
225 mscx uncompressed MuseScore file
227 mscz compressed MuseScore file
229 musicxml uncompressed MusicXML file
231 mxl compressed MusicXML file
233 ogg OGG Vorbis (lossy compressed audio)
235 pdf portable document file (print)
237 png portable network graphics (image)
239 Individual files, one per score page, with a hyphen-minus
241 followed by the page number placed before the file exten‐
242 sion, will be generated.
243 spos segment positions (XML)
245 svg scalable vector graphics (image)
247 wav RIFF Waveform (uncompressed audio)
249 xml uncompressed MusicXML file
251 See below for an example.
253
255 SKIP_LIBJACK
256 Set this (the value does not matter) to skip initialisation of
257 the JACK Audio Connection Kit library, in case it causes trouble.
258 XDG_CONFIG_HOME
260 User configuration location; defaults to ~/.config if unset.
261 XDG_DATA_HOME
263 User data location; defaults to ~/.local/share if unset.
264 XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR
266 Location of works the user created with the application; defaults
267 to ~/Documents (or a localised version) and can be set in
268 $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/user-dirs.dirs.
269 Note that MuseScore also supports the normal Qt environment variables
271 such as QT_QPA_GENERIC_PLUGINS, QT_QPA_PLATFORM, QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME,
272 QT_QPA_PLATFORM_PLUGIN_PATH, QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE, DISPLAY, etc.
273
275 /usr/share/mscore-3.4/ contains the application support data (demos,
276 instruments, localisation, system-wide plugins, soundfonts, styles,
277 chords, templates and wallpapers). In the Debian packages, system-wide
278 soundfonts are installed into /usr/share/sounds/sf2/,
279 /usr/share/sounds/sf3/ or /usr/share/sounds/sfz/, respectively, instead.
280 The per-user data (extensions, plugins, soundfonts, styles, templates)
282 and files (images, scores) are normally installed into subdirectories
283 under $XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR/MuseScore3/ but may be changed in the configura‐
284 tion. Note that snapshot, alpha and beta versions use
285 MuseScore3Development instead of MuseScore3 in all of these paths.
286 $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/MuseScore/MuseScore3.ini contains the user preferences,
288 list of recently used files and their locations, window sizes and posi‐
289 tions, etc. See above for development version paths.
290 $XDG_DATA_HOME/MuseScore/MuseScore3/ contains updated localisation files
292 downloaded from within the program, plugin information, cached scores,
293 credentials for the musescore.com community site, session information,
294 synthesiser settings, custom key and time signatures and shortcuts. See
295 above for development version paths.
296
298 Convert a score to PDF from the command line:
299 mscore -o 'My Score.pdf' 'My Score.mscz'
301 Run a batch job converting multiple documents:
303 mscore -j job.json
305 This requires the file job.json in the current working directory to have
307 content similar to the following:
308 [
310 {
311 "in": "Reunion.mscz",
312 "out": "Reunion-coloured.pdf",
313 "plugin": "colornotes.qml"
314 },
315 {
316 "in": "Reunion.mscz",
317 "out": [
318 "Reunion.pdf",
319 [ "Reunion (part for ", ").pdf" ],
320 "Reunion.musicxml",
321 "Reunion.mid"
322 ]
323 },
324 {
325 "in": "Piece with excerpts.mscz",
326 "out": [
327 "Piece with excerpts (Partitura).pdf",
328 [ "Piece with excerpts (part for ", ").pdf" ],
329 "Piece with excerpts.mid"
330 ]
331 }
332 ]
333 The last part of the job would, for example, cause files like “Piece with
335 excerpts (part for Violin).pdf” to be generated alongside the conductor's
336 partitura and a MIDI file with the full orchestra sound, whereas the
337 equivalent part of the Reunion conversion will be silently ignored
338 (because the Reunion piece (a MuseScore demo) has no excerpts defined).
339 https://musescore.org/sites/musescore.org/files/midi_import_options_0.xml
341 is a sample MIDI import operations file for the -M option.
342
344 The mscore utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
345
347 fluidsynth(1), midicsv(1), timidity(1), qtoptions(7)
348 https://musescore.org/handbook
350 Online Handbook, full user manual
351 https://musescore.org/forum
353 Support Forum
354 https://musescore.org/handbook/command-line-options-0
356 Further documentation of command line options
357 https://musescore.org/handbook/revert-factory-settings-0
359 Reverting to factory settings (troubleshooting)
360 https://musescore.org/project/issues
362 Project Issue Tracker
363 Please check first to if the bug you're encountering has already
365 been reported. If you just need help with something, then please
366 use the support forum (see above) instead.
367 http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qguiapplication.html#supported-command-line-options
369 Documentation of automatic Qt command line options
370
372 MuseScore attempts to implement the following standards:
373 · MusicXML 3.1 (score interchange format)
375 · SF2 (SoundFont 2.01)
377 · SF3 (SoundFont with OGG Vorbis-compressed samples)
379 · SFZ (Sforzato soundfont)
381 · SMuFL (Standard Music Font Layout 1.20)
383
385 MuseScore was split off the MusE sequencer in 2002 and has since become
386 the foremost Open Source notation software.
387
389 MuseScore is developed by Werner Schweer and others.
390 This manual page was written by mirabilos <tg@debian.org>.
392
394 The automatic Qt command line options are removed from the argument vec‐
395 tor before the application has a chance at option processing; this means
396 that an invocation like
397 mscore -S -reverse
399 has no chance at working because the -reverse is removed by Qt first.
401
403 MuseScore does not honour /etc/papersize.
404 Probably some more; check the project's bug tracker (cf. SEE ALSO).
406MuseScore June 18, 2019 MuseScore