musescore

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

-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)

Batch conversion job JSON format

• The top-level element must be a JSONArray, which may be empty.
• Each array element must be a JSONObject with the following keys:

  in

  Value is the name of the input file (score to convert), as JSONString.

  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 plugin and out must be given.

  out

  Value is the conversion output target, as defined below. Optional, but at least one of plugin and out must be given.

• The conversion output target may be a filename (with extension, which decided the format to convert to), as JSONString.
• 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.
• 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 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.
• Valid file extensions for output are:

  flac

  Free Lossless Audio Codec (compressed audio)

  mid

  standard MIDI file

  mlog

  internal file sanity check log (JSON)

  mp3

  MPEG Layer III (lossy compressed audio)

  mpos

  measure positions (XML)

  mscx

  uncompressed MuseScore file

  mscz

  compressed MuseScore file

  musicxml

  uncompressed MusicXML file

  mxl

  compressed MusicXML file

  ogg

  OGG Vorbis (lossy compressed audio)

  pdf

  portable document file (print)

  png

  portable network graphics (image)

  Individual files, one per score page, with a hyphen-minus followed by the page number placed before the file extension, will be generated.

  spos

  segment positions (XML)

  svg

  scalable vector graphics (image)

  wav

  RIFF Waveform (uncompressed audio)

  xml

  uncompressed MusicXML file

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.

FILES

EXAMPLES

[ 
  { 
    "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" 
    ] 
  } 
]

DIAGNOSTICS

SEE ALSO

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

• 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

AUTHORS

CAVEATS

BUGS