1MSCORE(1) BSD General Commands Manual MSCORE(1)
2
4 mscore, musescore — MuseScore 4 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] [--save-online]
20 [--score-media] [--highlight-config] [--score-mp3] [--score-parts]
21 [--score-parts-pdf] [--score-transpose] [--template-mode]
22 [--test-mode] [--version] [file ...]
23
25 MuseScore is a Free and Open Source WYSIWYG cross-platform multi-lingual
26 music composition and notation software, released under the GNU General
27 Public Licence (GPLv2).
28 Running mscore without any extra options launches the full graphical Mus‐
30 eScore program and opens any files specified on the command line.
31 The options are as follows:
33 -a | --use-audio driver
35 Use audio driver: one of jack, alsa, portaudio, pulse
36 -b | --bitrate bitrate
38 Set MP3 output bitrate in kbit/s
39 -c | --config-folder pathname
41 Override configuration and settings directory
42 -D | --monitor-resolution DPI
44 Specify monitor resolution (override autodetection)
45 -d | --debug
47 Start MuseScore in debug mode
48 -E | --install-extension extension file
50 Install an extension file; soundfonts are loaded by default un‐
51 less -e is also specified
52 -e | --experimental
54 Enable experimental features, such as layers
55 -F | --factory-settings
57 Revert all settings, shortcuts, workspaces, extensions, transla‐
58 tions, etc. to factory defaults; compare with the -R option
59 -f | --force
61 Ignore score corruption and version mismatch warnings in
62 “converter mode”
63 -h | --help
65 Display an overview of invocation instructions
66 -I | --dump-midi-in
68 Display all MIDI input on the console
69 -i | --load-icons
71 Load icons from the filesystem; useful if you want to edit the
72 MuseScore icons and preview the changes
73 -j | --job file.json
75 Process a conversion job (see EXAMPLES below)
76 -L | --layout-debug
78 Start MuseScore in layout debug mode
79 -M | --midi-operations file
81 Specify MIDI import operations file (see EXAMPLES below)
82 -m | --no-midi
84 Disable MIDI input
85 -n | --new-score
87 Start with the New Score wizard regardless whether it's enabled
88 or disabled in the user preferences
89 -O | --dump-midi-out
91 Display all MIDI output on the console
92 -o | --export-to file
94 Export the given (or currently opened) file to the specified out‐
95 put file. The file type depends on the extension of the filename
96 given. This option switches to “converter mode” and avoids the
97 graphical user interface.
98 -P | --export-score-parts
100 When converting to PDF with the -o option, append each part's
101 pages to the created PDF file. If the score has no parts, all
102 default parts will temporarily be generated automatically.
103 -p | --plugin name
105 Execute the named plugin
106 -R | --revert-settings
108 Revert user preferences to factory default but retain shortcuts,
109 workspaces, extensions, translations, etc.; compare with -F.
110 -r | --image-resolution DPI
112 Set image resolution for conversion to PNG files.
113 Default: 360 DPI (actually, the value of “Resolution” of the PNG
115 option group in the Export tab of the preferences)
116 -S | --style style
118 Load a style file first; useful for use with the -o option
119 -s | --no-synthesizer
121 Disable the integrated software synthesiser
122 -T | --trim-image margin
124 Trim exported PNG and SVG images to remove whitespace surrounding
125 the score. The specified margin, in pixels, will be retained
126 (use 0 for a tightly cropped image). When exporting to SVG, this
127 option only works with single-page scores.
128 -t | --test-mode
130 Set test mode flag for all files
131 -v | --version
133 Display the name and version of the application without starting
134 the graphical user interface
135 -w | --no-webview
137 Disable the web view component in the Start Centre
138 -x | --gui-scaling factor
140 Scale the score display and other GUI elements by the specified
141 factor; intended for use with high-resolution displays
142 --diff Print a conditioned diff between the given scores
144 --long-version
146 Display the full name, version and git revision of the applica‐
147 tion without starting the graphical user interface
148 --no-fallback-font
150 Don't use Bravura as fallback musical font
151 --raw-diff
153 Print a raw diff between the given scores
154 --run-test-script
156 Run script tests listed in the command line arguments
157 --save-online
159 Upload score(s) to its source URL. There must already be an on‐
160 line score at that URL, and the user must be signed-in to the ac‐
161 count it belongs to. The online score will be replaced with the
162 uploaded file, but the title and description of the online
163 score's webpage will not change.
164 --score-media
166 Export all media (except MP3) for a given score as a single JSON
167 document to stdout
168 --highlight-config
170 Set highlight to svg, generated from a given score
171 --score-mp3
173 Generate an MP3 for the given score and export it as a single
174 JSON document to stdout
175 --score-parts
177 Generate parts data for the given score and save them to separate
178 mscz files
179 --score-parts-pdf
181 Generate parts data for the given score and export it as a single
182 JSON document to stdout
183 --score-transpose
185 Transpose the given score and export the data to a single JSON
186 file, print it to stdout
187 --template-mode
189 Save files in template mode (e.g. without page sizes)
190 MuseScore supports the automatic Qt command line options (see below).
192 Batch conversion job JSON format
194 The argument to the -j option must be the pathname of a file comprised of
195 a valid JSON document honouring the following specification:
196 • The top-level element must be a JSONArray, which may be empty.
198 • Each array element must be a JSONObject with the following keys:
200 in Value is the name of the input file (score to convert), as
202 JSONString.
203 plugin Value is the filename of a plugin (with the .qml extension),
205 which will be read from either the global or per-user plugin
206 path and executed before the conversion output happens, as
207 JSONString. Optional, but at least one of plugin and out
208 must be given.
209 out Value is the conversion output target, as defined below. Op‐
211 tional, but at least one of plugin and out must be given.
212 • The conversion output target may be a filename (with extension, which
214 decided the format to convert to), as JSONString.
215 • The conversion output target may be a JSONArray of filenames as JSON‐
217 String, as above, which will cause the score to be written to multi‐
218 ple output files (in multiple output formats) sequentially, without
219 being closed, re-opened and re-processed in between.
220 • If the conversion output target is a JSONArray, one or more of its
222 elements may also be, each, a JSONArray of two JSONStrings (called
223 first and second half in the following description). This will cause
224 part extraction: for each such two-tuple, all extant parts of the
225 score will be saved individually, with filenames being composed by
226 concatenating the first half, the name (title) of the part, and the
227 second half. The resulting string must be a valid filename (with ex‐
228 tension, determining the output format). If a score has no parts
229 (excerpts) defined, this will be silently ignored without error.
230 • Valid file extensions for output are:
232 flac Free Lossless Audio Codec (compressed audio)
234 metajson various score metadata (JSON)
236 mid standard MIDI file
238 midi standard MIDI file
240 mlog internal file sanity check log (JSON)
242 mp3 MPEG Layer III (lossy compressed audio)
244 mpos measure positions (XML)
246 mscz MuseScore File
248 mscx MuseScore Uncompressed File
250 mscs MuseScore Uncompressed File
252 musicxml uncompressed MusicXML file
254 mxl compressed MusicXML file
256 ogg OGG Vorbis (lossy compressed audio)
258 pdf portable document file (print)
260 png portable network graphics (image)
262 Individual files, one per score page, with a hyphen-minus
264 followed by the page number placed before the file exten‐
265 sion, will be generated.
266 spos segment positions (XML)
268 svg scalable vector graphics (image)
270 wav RIFF Waveform (uncompressed audio)
272 xml uncompressed MusicXML file
274 See below for an example.
276
278 SKIP_LIBJACK
279 Set this (the value does not matter) to skip initialisation of
280 the JACK Audio Connection Kit library, in case it causes trouble.
281 XDG_CONFIG_HOME
283 User configuration location; defaults to ~/.config if unset.
284 XDG_DATA_HOME
286 User data location; defaults to ~/.local/share if unset.
287 XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR
289 Location of works the user created with the application; defaults
290 to ~/Documents (or a localised version) and can be set in
291 $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/user-dirs.dirs.
292 Note that MuseScore also supports the normal Qt environment variables
294 such as QT_QPA_GENERIC_PLUGINS, QT_QPA_PLATFORM, QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME,
295 QT_QPA_PLATFORM_PLUGIN_PATH, QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE, DISPLAY, etc.
296
298 /usr/share/mscore-4.1/ contains the application support data (demos, in‐
299 struments, localisation, system-wide plugins, soundfonts, styles, chords,
300 templates and wallpapers). In the Debian packages, system-wide sound‐
301 fonts are installed into /usr/share/sounds/sf2/, /usr/share/sounds/sf3/
302 or /usr/share/sounds/sfz/, respectively, instead.
303 The per-user data (extensions, plugins, soundfonts, styles, templates)
305 and files (images, scores) are normally installed into subdirectories un‐
306 der $XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR/MuseScore3/ but may be changed in the configura‐
307 tion. Note that snapshot, alpha and beta versions use
308 MuseScore3Development instead of MuseScore3 in all of these paths.
309 $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/MuseScore/MuseScore3.ini contains the user preferences,
311 list of recently used files and their locations, window sizes and posi‐
312 tions, etc. See above for development version paths.
313 $XDG_DATA_HOME/MuseScore/MuseScore3/ contains updated localisation files
315 downloaded from within the program, plugin information, cached scores,
316 credentials for the musescore.com community site, session information,
317 synthesiser settings, custom key and time signatures and shortcuts. See
318 above for development version paths.
319
321 Convert a score to PDF from the command line:
322 mscore -o 'My Score.pdf' 'My Score.mscz'
324 Run a batch job converting multiple documents:
326 mscore -j job.json
328 This requires the file job.json in the current working directory to have
330 content similar to the following:
331 [
333 {
334 "in": "Reunion.mscz",
335 "out": "Reunion-coloured.pdf",
336 "plugin": "colornotes.qml"
337 },
338 {
339 "in": "Reunion.mscz",
340 "out": [
341 "Reunion.pdf",
342 [ "Reunion (part for ", ").pdf" ],
343 "Reunion.musicxml",
344 "Reunion.mid"
345 ]
346 },
347 {
348 "in": "Piece with excerpts.mscz",
349 "out": [
350 "Piece with excerpts (Partitura).pdf",
351 [ "Piece with excerpts (part for ", ").pdf" ],
352 "Piece with excerpts.mid"
353 ]
354 }
355 ]
356 The last part of the job would, for example, cause files like “Piece with
358 excerpts (part for Violin).pdf” to be generated alongside the conductor's
359 partitura and a MIDI file with the full orchestra sound, whereas the
360 equivalent part of the Reunion conversion will be silently ignored (be‐
361 cause the Reunion piece (a MuseScore demo) has no excerpts defined).
362 https://musescore.org/sites/musescore.org/files/midi_import_options_0.xml
364 is a sample MIDI import operations file for the -M option.
365
367 The mscore utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
368
370 fluidsynth(1), midicsv(1), timidity(1), qtoptions(7)
371 https://musescore.org/handbook
373 Online Handbook, full user manual
374 https://musescore.org/forum
376 Support Forum
377 https://musescore.org/handbook/command-line-options-0
379 Further documentation of command line options
380 https://musescore.org/handbook/revert-factory-settings-0
382 Reverting to factory settings (troubleshooting)
383 https://musescore.org/project/issues
385 Project Issue Tracker
386 Please check first to if the bug you're encountering has already
388 been reported. If you just need help with something, then please
389 use the support forum (see above) instead.
390 http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qguiapplication.html#supported-command-line-options
392 Documentation of automatic Qt command line options
393
395 MuseScore attempts to implement the following standards:
396 • MusicXML 3.1 (score interchange format)
398 • SF2 (SoundFont 2.01)
400 • SF3 (SoundFont with OGG Vorbis-compressed samples)
402 • SFZ (Sforzato soundfont)
404 • SMuFL (Standard Music Font Layout 1.30)
406
408 MuseScore was split off the MusE sequencer in 2002 and has since become
409 the foremost Open Source notation software.
410
412 MuseScore is developed by MuseScore BVBA and others.
413 This manual page was written by mirabilos <tg@debian.org>.
415
417 The automatic Qt command line options are removed from the argument vec‐
418 tor before the application has a chance at option processing; this means
419 that an invocation like
420 mscore -S -reverse
422 has no chance at working because the -reverse is removed by Qt first.
424
426 MuseScore does not honour /etc/papersize.
427 Probably some more; check the project's bug tracker (cf. SEE ALSO).
429MuseScore November 6, 2020 MuseScore