How do I get my old scores to open in new style?
I have been writing with Musescore for many years, and I have a lot of old scores from early versions of the program that look bad and hard to read. When I open them with newer versions, they still look the same. I have to copy the whole piece and make an entirely new score to get the updated look, which is a fair amount of work, since the program doesn't copy things like repeat bar lines. Is there any way to open an old score in the updated style?
Comments
Format > Style > Reset all to default.
In reply to Format > Style > Reset all… by Jojo-Schmitz
Yes, I already tried this. There was no change.
In reply to Yes, I already tried this… by Accornion
Well, there would have to be some change, but it might be more subtle than you are expecting, depending on how old the scores actually are and also how many manual overrides were applied. In many cases, you would also need to reset manual adjustments (eg, Ctrl+A to select all, Ctrl+R to reset), and in some cases (especially scores created way back in MuseScore 1), also remove custom formatting applied to text, and that's more complication.
If you attach a sample score, we can walk you through the steps that would be required for it, and presumably your other scores are similar and would benefit from the same approach.
In reply to Well, there would have to be… by Marc Sabatella
Okay, thanks.
In reply to Well, there would have to be… by Marc Sabatella
This is the original, old score, then the score after resetting to the new style. The only change seems to be that some of the text got smooshed together. For comparison, here is a more recent score I wrote, which looks totally different and much better.
In reply to This is the original, old… by Accornion
That's not the score, just pictures of it.
In reply to That's not the score, just… by Jojo-Schmitz
Okay, but what I am asking (and thank you for taking the time) is whether there is any way to automatically convert an old score to the new look, without having to manually reset the sizes of everything.
In reply to Okay, but what I am asking … by Accornion
You don't have to manually reset everything one at a time, but MuseScore normally tries to preserve the original look of your score as much as possible, so indeed, you will need to be explicit about your reset to undo all that.
When I look at your score, I see a number of things you did that were not the default in MsueScore 1.2, so it's not clear if you really want to reset all of that. For instance, it seems you told MuseScore at one time not to show clefs on every system. That's not standard practice, so that's one of the things you'll have to decide if you want to reset or not. You also for some reason - perhaps to get it to all fit on one page - made the staff smaller than the default. So a full reset of everything to defaults will probably make it two pages - is that OK? There are other places where it seems you overrode the original settings, so you'll have to decide about those as well.
But anyhow, here are the basic steps I'd be looking for your score:
1) upon opening it, check each of those first three checkboxes in the import dialog, and then click "Apply new style".
2) Ctrl+A, Ctrl+R to reset any remaining manual adjustments (I don';t know that this particular has any that weren't already reset in step 1)
3) go to Format / Page Settings and hit "Reset All Page Settings to Default", then OK
4) go to Format / Style and hit "Reset All Styles to Default", then OK
Finally, because this is indeed such an old score - created before text style was a thing and thus all formatting was "baked in" to the text - you'll need to reset the title etc. Frankly, it might be easier just to delete those and re-enter them, but anyhow, here's how to reset the text in these extremely old scores:
1) right-click the title
2) in the Inspector, click Remove Custom Formatting
3) then click each of the reset buttons that shows as being enabled
You'll need to do that for title, composer, and lyricist separately. You'll also need to select the frame itself and click the reset buttons for it.
For things like staff text, you can right-click one, then Select / All Similar Elements, and then do the reset as above.
The whole process should take about a minute per score.
In reply to Okay, but what I am asking … by Accornion
There is no fully automatic way.
Try this, it should come close. Only the space setting is 0.05 smaller than the default, for the score to still fit a single page
In reply to Yes, I already tried this… by Accornion
If there is no change, you've been using the new style already
In reply to If there is no change, you… by Jojo-Schmitz
No, it looks exactly the same as Musescore from 10 years ago, with tiny, hard to read staves and notes.
In reply to No, it looks exactly the… by Accornion
Sure not. 10 years ago the default was Emmentaler as the Musical font, now is is Leland. Looks different for sure. But resetting the style does not increase staves. For tnbhat go to Format > Page format and reset there too.
And also, as Marc mentioned, to a Ctrl+A, Ctrl-R, which resests all positions. And check all texts whether they contain custom formatting and if so reset them too. That indeed is a known issue with MuseScore 1 scores (which 10 years ago is what it must have been)