Custom fonts on score uploaded on website

• May 24, 2018 - 21:35

Hi, I was wondering if it was possible to use custom fonts on an uploaded score online.
This score has fonts that are based off a game and were installed onto the PC the MuseScore client was on (therefore made it possible to use the fonts on the score).
But since the website does not have the fonts, it uses the default ones instead.
Is it possible to use custom fonts somehow on the website? My thoughts is that it cannot be displayed on the website through any means, but I just want to clarify.

Here is the download link for the custom fonts, if needed.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3m2p0qswoldwmy7/DDLCFonts.zip?dl=1

The score: https://musescore.com/user/2504796/scores/5106461


Comments

I don't know a way to use them as fonts, but what you can do is enter the text, snap a picture of it using the image capture tool (camera icon at right of toolbar), then delete the text and attach the image instead. Obviously, not practical for huge amounts of text throughout a score, but could be useful for a few special symbols here and there.

Custom (random) fonts are indeed not supported and afaik there is no intention for as well (fonts have licenses that might prohibit uploading them to the server, which can be considered redistribution).
Supported are: the default fonts that come with a minimal ubuntu installation + some of the more common windows fonts (Times New Roman / Arial) + all google fonts.

So you could try and get your font accepted into the Google Fonts catalog (see https://github.com/google/fonts/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md ) as well.

For smaller texts, using image capture (as SVG!) and then including that instead is likely by far the easiest option.

In reply to by rvilarl

Probably not related.
Scores with a custom smufl music font made with the MS3.7 'custom scorefonts' build from Jojo, revert (mostly) to Leland when uploading to musescore.com, AFAICS
Also, a score made with such a font, revert to Leland when opening in standard MS3 and MS4.
So why wouldn't the ability to use other fonts be implemented in the official MS4 build. (the code exists)
All competitors (Dorico, Finale and even Sibelius) allow 3rd party music fonts. It this the difference between a professional product and (fill in)
Imagine Microsoft Word not allowing other fonts.
I make scores for real musicians. I do care about how printed sheet music looks and i would like to have a choice.
MuseScore has always been a 'scorewriter'. I have the feeling that this has changed and MS wants to be some kind of DAW.

In reply to by graffesmusic

MuseScore has never supported third party music fonts, so I have no idea what you mean about it not being a "scorewriter" anymore. On the contrary, MuseScore 4 makes huge advances in engraving quality, pretty much leapfrogging both Finale and Sibelius. Sure, there are playback improvements too, but the engraving improvements are at least as dramatic, and will continue to be over time.

Anyhow, so far no one has dedicated the time and attention to solving the licensing and sharing issues that come up for open source applications using these fonts and providing sharing platforms - problems those other programs haven't had to face because they aren't open source and don't provide similar sharing platforms. No doubt it will happen eventually.

Anyhow, you certainly have choices of music fonts - more with MU4 then any previous release of MuseScore. And presumably more still to come.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

The reason for not implementing custom fonts it has always be the commercial sharing platform.
But as said the scores just revert back to Leland if the font is not know.
The 'licensing' problem simply does not exist.
LibreOffice is open source. Almost any word processor i have ever seen can use any font installed on the system, free or not.

But i should note have posted this, sorry for this.

In reply to by graffesmusic

Exactly - a problem yet to be solved is the fact that when you share your score, you won't get the same thing you were seeing on your system, which could easily lead to layout problems like breaks in the wrong places, etc. Word processors don't have to deal with that because the formatting is not such an important part of how the content is presented that every single line break needs to be in the same place or the document might become much harder to read. And also, word processors don't generally provide document sharing platforms in which people expect to see their documents presented in the same format as on their own systems. It's apples and oranges.

So, An executive decision has to be made to say, it's OK for people's formatting to be lost and allow scores to uploaded that might look terrible, or else licensing issues need to be addressed to allow more fonts to be hosted on musescore.com. Again, it's solvable for sure, but so far people have been too busy tackling higher priority engraving and other improvements to have dealt with this. All in good time.

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