The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #74709 Message #1308090
Posted By: PoppaGator
26-Oct-04 - 07:08 PM
Thread Name: Online printable music paper source
Subject: RE: Online printable music paper source
To create printable blank manuscript in MS Word:
Create a new document and click "Table" on the menu bar & select "Insert"/"Table." (If you like, you might first want to go into "Page Setup" to adjust your margins, etc.)
In the window that pops up, type in for "columns" <1> and for "rows" <4>. This will give you five lines and four spaces; in newer versions of Word, the lines (five horizontal lines plus a vertical at each end) will be visible/printed by default. In older versions, the lines appear on-screen in light gray and will be invisible (will not print) unless/until you highlight the table and run the "Format/Borders" routine to make the lines printed/visible.
The lines will probably be 12 points apart, which may be wider spacing than most would prefer. To change the spacing, highlight the "table" (that is, the "staff") and change the point size in the little box next to the font name on your menu bar. Try 9 or 10.
Make sure that there is a blank line or two below the table/staff, and then highlight and copy the staff-plus-space-below.
Paste what you copied repeatedly, enough to fill a page, and there's your page of music paper.
NOTE: To make blank paper for guitar tablature, just specify five rows (to generate six horizontal lines) instead of four.
ALSO: If you can live with pre-defined measures of a set width-- instead of allowing the size of a measure to vary according to how many notes you have to fit -- you can specify your "table" to consist of multiple columns (maybe 4, 5, or 6 across the page) instead of one column.
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It's probably true that the cost of paper and toner (toner especially) makes this procedure not as "free" as you might think. However, if you're recycling printed-on-one-side paper that would otherwise go to waste, it might well be worth it.
Of course, this creates computer-printed blank forms on which you have to make marks with pen or pencil. If any of the above-mentioned sites provides computerized staffs upon which you can computer-typeset "dots," well, go for it -- I can't compete with that!