Windows
Multi-window support is a natural part of using a Mac but still a relatively new addition to iPad. Windows give you the freedom to multitask with ease, letting you switch from one context to another without losing your work or having to remember what you were just viewing.
Note: multi-window support is only available on macOS and iPadOS. Specific instructions for opening or closing windows can depend on your operating system and version—please consult Apple’s documentation for complete details.
Primary Window
forScore’s main interface always appears first. It offers the complete forScore experience, all features described in this guide, and can be used on its own without any additional windows.
Secondary Windows
While forScore’s primary window gives you complete access to all of the app’s features, secondary windows offer a more modern, streamlined interface built using functionality that wasn’t available when forScore was first built. Secondary windows are designed to take full advantage of these features—things like Contextual Menus—and offer a unique experience designed around them. In most cases, secondary windows mimic the core forScore experience and conform to your preferred settings; they work as similarly to the primary window as possible while offering most of the app’s best functionality.
Secondary windows combine forScore’s many different windows and panels into a single hierarchy, with a sidebar, menu, and page view all in one. Swipe inward from the left side of the screen or press the sidebar button in the top left-hand corner of the screen to access these views.
Sidebar & Search:
The sidebar gives you a high-level view of your library and the integrated search function offers instant access to almost anything (just like the primary window’s global search function).
Menus:
Menus are presented to the right of the sidebar—their lists can be sorted and their contents can be edited in similar ways as the primary window using the icons in the navigation bar at the top of the menu or with swipe actions and contextual menus. Menus also feature a search bar that lets you filter the contents of the list below it.
Page View:
The page view supports similar gestures as the primary window (swipe or tap to turn pages and tap the center of the screen to show or hide the navigation bar and seek bar). Use the buttons in the navigation bar to edit or share the current score and to access the Display Options interface where you can adjust layout, page turning behavior, sepia mode, performance mode, face gestures, and more.
External Windows
Much like the older “tv output” setting originally offered for the earliest iPads that didn’t support screen mirroring, external windows show a copy of the current score in a presentation-friendly way so you can show a page to students, an audience, or to multiple performers. This type of window is created when toggling the “external display” option in the Display Options interface, shown at all times on macOS and also on iPads whenever an external display is available.
iCloud Syncing
With iCloud Syncing, forScore can automatically keep your sheet music library up to date across all of your devices.
Setup
To set up syncing, start with your device that contains the most complete and up-to-date music library. Choose Sync from the Tools menu and tap “Sync with iCloud” to enable it. Next, you’ll have to choose how to handle conflicts with any data already on the server, if applicable: in general, you should choose “Prefer Device Versions” on your primary device, and choose “Prefer iCloud Versions” from other devices that may not yet contain complete copies of your library.
Once you’ve completed syncing from your primary device, repeat these steps on your other devices. Note that your choice to prefer device or iCloud versions of your data is only necessary when enabling syncing—from then on, forScore has enough information to resolve conflicts automatically.
Syncing Content
Syncing happens automatically as you make changes to your library and as efficiently as possible depending on your connection type, server availability, and other factors. Changes are typically synced in less than a minute but may be delayed in some cases; to request that forScore begin syncing immediately, open the Sync panel and drag the view downward until the refresh control starts spinning. Return to this view at any time to see when the last successful sync was completed.
Currently, forScore syncs your music library and content (your sheet music, bookmarks, setlists, metadata, annotations, recordings, and more). Settings are not synced, however, since many people choose to use slightly different configurations on different devices to get the most out of each form factor. Due to privacy considerations, Dashboard data is not currently synced across devices.
Status & Error Messages
As with any network-dependent service, iCloud Syncing sometimes encounters issues that temporarily prevent it from completing its work. This is a normal part of the process and usually resolves itself after a short while. In other cases, syncing may not be able to proceed until you take additional action (in this case you’ll see a red exclamation mark next to the Sync entry in the tools menu).
iCloud Accounts & Storage
forScore uses your personal iCloud account to store its data and keep your content up to date across all devices. For multiple devices to share the same forScore library, they must be logged into the same iCloud account. This feature does not facilitate sharing content between different accounts (even those that use Family Sharing).
Apple’s iCloud service provides different storage plans, and you will not be able to use forScore’s syncing functionality if your account does not have sufficient storage. iCloud accounts, storage plans, and payments are all handled exclusively by Apple.
Backups
forScore stores its synced documents in iCloud, but in a separate location from Apple’s whole-device backups. If you use iCloud Backup to back up your device(s) and you also plan to use forScore’s syncing feature, you may not have sufficient storage space to accommodate both. If needed, forScore can indicate to the system that its documents should no longer be included in future whole-device backups. This increases the risk of data loss, but ensures that only the synced copies of your forScore files exist in iCloud. In this case, it’s imperative that you manually back up your data to a safe, non-synced location in case your data is corrupted or lost. Once a change is synced across your devices, this is the only way to ensure that you can revert to a previous state.
Privacy
All of your data is stored by Apple using your iCloud account and as such is governed by their policies and terms of service. We do not maintain user accounts of any kind, and we do not analyze or share your content with any other party at any time.
Crop
The Crop tool lets you change how forScore presents each page of music on-screen without modifying the PDF file itself. Note that cropping or uncropping a page permanently adjusts any existing drawn annotations you’ve made, so consider creating a backup before proceeding.
Basics
Reposition your page by using one finger to drag it around within the canvas or using two fingers (a “pinch” gesture) to zoom in or out. If needed, you can reduce the sensitivity of these gestures by dragging the slider along the left side of the screen up or down. Use higher speeds to make big changes, then use lower speeds to make small, precise adjustments. Tap the “x” button in the bottom toolbar to reset your page’s position and zoom factor, if needed.
To save your changes and close the Crop interface, tap the “Crop” button in the top right-hand corner of the screen. To save your work and continue cropping nearby pages instead, tap the arrow buttons in the navigation bar to move to the previous or next page. If a page is already cropped, you won’t be able to make any additional changes to its position and the “Crop” button will be replaced with a red “Uncrop” button which you can use to reset all cropping data.
Tap the guide icon (a rectangle with a horizontal line through it) in the toolbar along the bottom of the screen to show or hide the cropping guide. This guide shows you how your page will look in both portrait and landscape device orientations. Keep in mind that the landscape guide represents where the page will end up given the current device’s screen size and settings (like whether or not forScore is configured to show the status bar along the top of the screen). It does not represent every scenario and other devices may present your pages differently.
Note: cropping overrides the Metadata panel’s margin adjustment value; cropped pages will not zoom in or out based on this setting.
Automatic Positioning
When the Crop tool loads a page, it automatically scans it to find the best fit and repositions your page accordingly. Use the zoom button in the toolbar to reset to this positioning at any time.
De-skewing Pages
If your page is crooked, use the de-skew controls to straighten it. Tap the rotation icon in the toolbar to show or hide the de-skew control which appears along the bottom of the page. Drag it left or right to rotate the page clockwise or counter-clockwise. When you do, a grid appears temporarily to help guide your adjustments.
Editing All Pages Simultaneously
In the toolbar along the bottom of the screen, you’ll see a button that looks like a grid of pages—tap here to crop or uncrop all pages of the current score simultaneously. Choose “Crop All Pages Automatically” to let forScore scan each page and adjust it to best fit the screen (pages that are already cropped won’t be changed). Or, position the current page as needed and use those values to crop all uncropped pages in the document by choosing “Crop All Pages Like This.” If any pages in the document are already cropped, choose “Uncrop All Pages” to uncrop them all.
Automatic Backups
Each time you open the Crop interface and make one or more changes (cropping or uncropping one or more pages), forScore makes an automatic backup of the current score and places it in the “Recently Updated” section of forScore’s Backups panel. If you want to revert to this last-saved state, close the Crop interface, open forScore’s Tools menu and choose Backups, then visit this section to see a list of scores. Tap your score to return it to your library, either as a second copy (“Keep Both”) or replacing the current copy (“Restore Original”). Note that forScore keeps only the most recent snapshot of a score, and recycles it after seven days, so it’s important to use this feature immediately after you make a change, if needed.
Keyboard & Cursor Support
forScore’s Crop interface features extensive support for use with keyboards, trackpads, and mice. With the Crop interface open, hold down the Command key (on an iPad) or open the “Crop” menu (on a Mac) to see most of the available key commands, including shortcuts for most of the items in the navigation bar and toolbar along the top bottom of the screen.
You can also use a keyboard to adjust the page’s position by using the bracket keys (‘[‘ and ‘]’) to zoom in or out, the bracket and alt keys to rotate, and the arrow keys to nudge the page in any cardinal direction. Press these keys or key combinations once or press and hold them down to repeat the action as many times as necessary. Use the shift key with any of these commands to increase their adjustment rate.
Place two fingers on your trackpad and use pinch or pan (scroll) gestures to zoom in or out and reposition the page on screen (note that not all trackpads support these gestures). If these gestures are unavailable or you prefer not to use them, click and drag the page to reposition it instead, and use key commands to zoom in or out.
Note that the speed adjustment slider on the left side of the screen reduces the sensitivity of touch as well as cursor gestures (scrolling or panning) but does not affect the speed of adjustments made using keyboard shortcuts.
Contextual Menus
On iOS and iPadOS, Contextual Menus combine thumbnail previews, swipe actions, edit mode actions, and Drag and Drop gestures into one streamlined interaction. On macOS (or when you’re using a pointing device with an iPad) they work just like normal right-click menus. Just as it does with Drag and Drop gestures, forScore leverages Contextual Menus to make many of its existing features more accessible, discoverable, and quicker to use.
Basics
If you’re using your finger, a long press (or tap and hold) gesture opens a contextual menu whenever one is available, along with a content preview when applicable. Tap to choose any of the available actions, or tap away to dismiss it. If you’re using a pointing device, right click instead to open a contextual menu; note that in this case Apple does not provide any previews but menus otherwise work the same way.
Scores & Bookmarks
A great place to use contextual menus is when you’re working with scores and bookmarks in list views like the main score, bookmark, and setlist menus, the search panel, and within item pickers used throughout the app. Tap and hold an item to see a preview of it and discover all of the actions that are currently available: common actions include opening an item in a new tab, sharing it, or deleting it. In most cases, you can also tap the preview image to either open or select it depending on the context.
Setlists
When working with setlists, use contextual menus to share, duplicate, move, delete, or open them in a new tab. The move item, in particular, uses nested menus to give you more granular options: tap “move” then choose from “to top” or “to bottom.”
Multiple Selection
In menus that support multiple item selection through edit mode, contextual menus can be used to work with all selected items at once. Tap “Edit” to activate edit mode, select two or more items, then tap and hold or right click on any one of them to see which options are available for all of those items.
More
In forScore’s main view, the title bar’s central display area includes a contextual menu that lets you work with the current score. You can also right click on any open tab to work with that tab’s item, or anywhere on the page to access additional common actions (due to conflicts with existing tap-and-hold gestures, these last two menus are not available using touch).
While in annotation mode, use contextual menus to duplicate or delete drawing presets and to copy, paste, replace, clear, or delete annotation layers. In the tools menu, contextual menus are available for many (though not all) items in the list. If there’s a tool you haven’t used yet or want to know more about, tap and hold it then choose “learn more.”
Other places you can use contextual menus include the Services panel, libraries menu, backups panel, storefront, and Dashboard. Tap and hold items within these views to see all of their available actions.
Mac Menus
On macOS, contextual menus in forScore work just like other “right click” menus. They do not provide previews or icons but otherwise replicate the same functionality as described above.
Disabling Contextual Menus
If you find that contextual menus aren’t helpful, or if they interfere with Drag & Drop gestures, you can disable some of these interactions by visiting the Accessibility section of forScore’s settings panel.
Page Turners & Shortcuts
Accessories
forScore works with a variety of accessories, including page turners, keyboards, MIDI devices, and styluses. Most MIDI devices and certain page turners can be connected using a cable (and usually an adapter such as Apple’s USB adapters or the iRig MIDI).
Most other accessories use Bluetooth and can be connected to your iOS device through the Settings app, or through System Preferences on a Mac. Several specific devices can also connect directly to forScore through the Devices section of the app’s settings panel: these include AirTurn’s page turning devices that use the newer “Bluetooth Smart” technology, such as the PED, PEDpro, and BT200 series, as well as the iRig BlueBoard, Turn Touch remote, and devices that support Bluetooth MIDI.
Keyboards
When a typing keyboard is connected to your device, forScore allows you to use a variety of shortcuts to perform common actions depending on which view you’re working in. In the main view, default shortcuts allow you to turn pages, enter annotation mode, open most menus, search, work with tabs, and more. Most of forScore’s menus include default shortcuts like search, back, and dismiss, while other views like the Metronome and Pitch Pipe feature shortcuts for common actions specific to each utility. On iPadOS or visionOS, press and hold the command key to see an overlay that shows all currently available actions and the key combination you can use to activate each one.
By default, forScore turns pages when you press the arrow keys, space key, return key, and the page up/page down keys. That’s because many page turners are actually simplified keyboards that feature just a few “keys” or pedals and they usually send some combination of these keystrokes; this configuration allows forScore to work with most accessories right out of the box.
Virtual Keyboard
iOS’ virtual keyboard, which normally appears on screen when you need to type, disappears when the system thinks you’re using an external keyboard—this can prevent you from typing while using certain page turning devices. Some of these accessories include a hardware workaround to help you with this issue, which you can learn more about here.
Customization
Most of forScore’s shortcuts can be customized, and you can set up dozens of optional actions using almost any keyboard shortcut, MIDI command, or other supported accessory input. Open forScore’s Tools menu, choose Settings, then tap “Page Turners & Shortcuts” to access them all. Where applicable, defaults commands are shown in gray to the right of their associated actions. To customize an action, tap to highlight it and then activate a control on your external device—if the signals it sends are compatible with forScore, you’ll see the command appear in blue next to it. Tap the “x” button to remove a custom command.
You can use multiple inputs to trigger the same action: just repeat the process above to assign additional inputs, and a circled ellipsis button will appear to the right of the cell. Tap on this button to see all assigned inputs and remove one or all of them if needed.
Note: if a shortcut isn’t being recognized, check that it’s not already assigned to a different action; if so, you’ll need to remove it from that other action before reassigning it to a new one. Note that certain signals, like MIDI commands that represent a range of values rather than a simple on/off state, cannot be used in this panel.
Apple Pencil
Newer Apple Pencil models are touch sensitive and can be squeezed or double tapped to perform certain actions depending on which app you’re using. Apple provides a system setting that indicates how apps should generally behave—in forScore, “Switch between current tool and eraser” and “switch between current and last used tool” work as stated, while “show color palette” and “show ink attributes” open the currently selected tool’s options, if applicable. Squeezing Apple Pencil Pro can also be configured to “show tool palette” which presents a radial tool picker in forScore so you can quickly switch tools.
By default, tool switching actions only work while you’re in annotation mode, but you can adjust this by changing the “switch tools” option in the Apple Pencil section of forScore’s settings panel (great if you use the instant annotation settings described above). Otherwise, if you prefer to repurpose the gesture and allow it to perform a different task whenever annotation mode is inactive, you can assign it to any of the options available in the “Page Turners & Shortcuts” settings panel.
AirPods
You can also flip pages using head turn gestures while wearing one or both AirPods Pro, AirPods 3, or AirPods Max. AirPods gestures are available beginning with forScore version 12.0.4. They require iOS or iPadOS 14.0 or later, compatible AirPods (a firmware update may be required), and a device that supports motion processing.
To flip pages backward or forward, hold your head still for a moment and then turn to the left or right with a quick and steady lateral motion (similar in speed and movement to a swipe gesture performed with your finger). Since gestures aren’t relative to your screen, you can start them from any position: forScore establishes a resting baseline, then waits for horizontal movement in either direction to determine when you’re trying to turn pages.
Note: AirPods gestures are not customizable and can only be used to turn pages; they do not function as inputs in the “Page Turners & Shortcuts” settings panel.
To set up AirPods gestures for the first time, open the Tools menu and choose Settings › Devices › AirPods, then enable gestures and, if prompted, allow forScore to access Motion & Fitness data to use this feature.
Once this is done, any time AirPods are active and connected to your device you’ll see the AirPods icon in the Display Options overlay where you can toggle these gestures per-window.