Cover page creation

Occasionally there are requests about creating a Cover Page/Sheet for a score. The answer is typically that it's best to do it using some other software, pdf it, and add the pdf to the score. However, with just a little bit of work, there is a way to create an esthetically acceptable cover from within MuseScore.

Assuming starting from scratch (if not, change/revise as required).
>>>Create a New Score-
In the Create New Score wizard, leave the Composer and Lyricist fields empty. (You’ll only have to delete them, or mark them invisible, later.)

>>>Move the music to page 2-
Once the creation is done and the new score is showing, select the Title/Subtitle frame and insert a Page Break from the Breaks & Spacers palette. This should move all the music to page 2.

>>>Create the Cover Page-
The text in the Title/Subtitle frame can be used to create the Cover Page text. (Don’t worry about the normal Title/Subtitle/Composer/Lyricist info, you’ll create that later.)
If an additional element (like a picture) is desired, select the first measure of the music and Add/Frames>Insert Vertical Frame. Delete the Page Break from the opening Title/Subtitle frame, and add a Page Break to the new Vertical Frame. Right-click the new Vertical Frame and select Add>Picture. If the picture is large, it will need to be reduced in size prior to adding it to the score. The picture will always align to the top/left of the Frame, but can be dragged to be larger. Since the picture will always align to the top/left (I don’t of any way around it), if a border is desired it will have to be done outside of MuseScore before adding it.

>>>Create the “new” Title/Subtitle etc.-
Back at the music, select the first measure of the music and Add/Frames>Insert Vertical Frame. Right-click the new Vertical Frame and Add>Title. Repeat for Subtitle, Composer, etc.

>>>Remove copyright from the Cover Page-
Select Style/General/Header, Footer, Numbers. In the Footer Text section, un-click Show First.

>>>Have the first page of music numbered as page 1 instead of page 2-
I don’t know. You can start measure counting from something other than 1 using the Measure Properties dialogue, but there doesn’t seem to be a similar feature for pages. Most simple sheet music uses the cover page as page 1 anyway, although larger volumes start page numbering from the inside.

I hope this is helpful,