We’re headed back to school. Today professor David MacDonald and Philip Rothman work on worksheets, that quintessential element of music instruction that appears in everything from homework assignments and classroom activities to quizzes and final exams. Unlike the more conventional scores and parts you might create with music notation software, worksheets often encompass a combination of short music examples, text, and graphics, all of which might need to fit on just a sheet or two of paper.

We talk about the ways you can bend music notation software to your will to help create A-plus worksheets and we’ll help you avoid failing when it comes to concepts like bar numbering, music spacing, applying text blocks, and hiding cautionary time and key signatures. These strategies aren’t just helpful for the classroom, and we explore other uses for these techniques, as well as ways to help keep everything organized when you need to rely on them in the future.

We’ll also dive into the ABC’s of graphic formats like SVG, PNG, and JPG, and how to export or import those formats between music notation programs and other software like word processors or page layout programs to create a document worthy of top marks.

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