Printing Tips for Music

With the new era of digital publishing comes various challenges for musicians. Paper size, paper weight and printer maintenance/setup are all areas that we must educate ourselves in to print music at a high standard.

For all of my arrangements and compositions, I create PDF’s in A4 (8.26″ by 11.69″) size. This is the household standard in Australia and the UK, the main markets in which I have worked. If you wish to print in Letter (8.5″ by 11″), you will have to set the printer to fit to page. This will make the music slightly smaller, but still readable.

I recommend that you print using 100GSM or heavier paper. The standard copy paper (80 GSM) is far too light to last longer than a few uses if it is not carefully handled. Heavier paper will also be harder to crease, and sometimes will fall off the stand if it is bent.

Lastly, my PDF’s are in B&W only. This saves your precious colour ink for more important photograph and poster printing.