Cover page creation

• Jun 15, 2016 - 21:13

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,

Attachment Size
Cover Page example.mscz 350.39 KB

Comments

In reply to by marty strasinger

One issue I haven't been able to resolve:
The copyright text in the footer can't be made to appear *only* on "page 1" when the page numbering has been changed so that the cover page is "page 0", and the first page with music is "page 1".

By adjusting the Layout/Page Settings- First page number field, and the Style/General/Header, Footer, Numbers fields for $C/$c and Show First, you can get the following results-
Copyright on *every* page, including the cover page
Copyright on every page, except the cover page
but not Copyright on only the first page with music (and no other pages).

Hi, I'm having a problem getting my title, composer name and page 1 of my score all onto the same page. Do you know any way of sorting this please. btw I've changed the margins and the size of fonts, but nothing makes any difference... Any suggestions are welcome, thanks! my email is mefrp@hotmail.com

This comment might be a little off-topic, but I was wondering how you got the slight ritardando effect on the last notes of the second and fourth bar in the example you gave. I've been looking for a way to do that for a while now and I've never found out. I tried "show hidden", but I didn't find any secrets in your sheet.

In reply to by DudeMyViolaBroke

There are invisible fermatas on the final notes of each of those bars. Use menu item: View, and put a check in the box 'Show Invisible'. (Each fermata's time stretch is set in the Inspector.)

If the fermatas do not appear, click on one of the the noteheads and toggle the keyboard letter V.

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.