Changelog

Tempo words and phrases like "p > a niente" on instrumental parts are no longer read as lyrics and lost, and a metronome mark printed above the first system is now kept. Trill lines stop where they end on the page, concert band systems with a one-line percussion staff no longer come out with empty bars, and pages printed without bar lines no longer lose notes.

In PDF and photo imports, chord symbols at the top and bottom of a page are now read, chord symbols set in Finale's jazz chord fonts come through as chords instead of being dropped or garbled, keyboard and harp staves stay together as one part, and a second piece printed in another time signature on the same page keeps its own metre. A triplet written as a quaver, two semiquavers and a quaver no longer loses its first note, tempo headings and pedal marks are no longer read as lyrics or text, empty bars before a multi-bar rest no longer shift the bar numbers, and a part labelled only "Saxophone" now asks which saxophone it is.

We went through the shortcut suggestions you sent us through in-app feedback and added default keys for the most requested ones.

• Dead and ghost notes: X toggles a dead note, Shift + X a ghost note, on standard and tab staves.
• Quarter tones: Alt + = and Alt + - add a quarter-tone sharp or flat. Add Shift for three-quarter tones.
• Select bars: Alt + A selects the current bar, and Alt + Shift + A selects it in every part. Ctrl + Shift + → / ← (Cmd on Mac) extends the selection one bar at a time.
• Time signature: T opens the time signature dialogue, and you can fill it in entirely from the keyboard. For example, to set 6/8: press T, type 6, press /, type 8, then press Enter.
• Write while playing with a MIDI keyboard: Shift + M turns MIDI input notation on and off.
• Double dot: Alt + .
• Insert a bar after the current one: Alt + Enter

These actions have no default key, but you can assign one in the shortcut settings:

• Last note you added: tie it, raise or lower it by an octave, or switch it to its enharmonic.
• Editing: delete a rest or hide its voice, remove a fingering, lock or unlock editing.
• Score: add a custom rehearsal mark, mute the current part, open the export dialogue.

Mark the end of a section or movement in the middle of your score.

Pick a sharp, flat, natural, double sharp or double flat from the trill dropdown in the ornaments panel when the trill's upper note is outside the key signature. Playback, the engraving and MusicXML export follow it, and a trill without one now follows earlier accidentals in the bar.

Add them from the dynamics palette, the sidebar or Quick Search. Each one has its own symbol and plays back.

Crescendos and diminuendos written as text ("cresc.", "dim.", "decresc.") now change the volume as written, in every playback engine. Before, the music stayed at the old level and jumped at the next dynamic. A crescendo on a held note now starts where it is written. Long hairpins between close soft dynamics, such as ppp to pp, now ramp too.

Tremolos now play with their depth, a trombone glissando no longer stops playback when you start in the middle of it, and voltas closed by their own repeat barline play in the right order.

Old Finale .mus files from Finale 2011 and earlier now import into your library, and Finale files saved by mistake with a MusicXML extension open as well. In MusicXML imports, instrument names spelt a little differently from ours, as some other notation apps write them, get the right instrument instead of falling back to piano, and .mxl files with accented names now open. Scores with more than 15 instruments now export to MIDI cleanly, where events past the 15th part used to break.

Tick "Include metronome" in the export menu to get a click track built into your audio, handy for practice tracks and for students.

Start as many imports as you need. Imports beyond the ones being processed now wait their turn instead of being refused, and the queue is shared fairly between customers, so one large batch does not hold up everyone else. Developers: see how many OMR jobs to run at once.

In PDF and photo imports, scores printed with separate parts keep all of their pages, long choir and band scores and large brass and horn sections keep every part, and euphonium, trumpet and violin parts get the right instrument and clef. Lyric hyphens and extender lines come through as hyphens and lines instead of underscores, letter-spaced lyrics are joined back into words, and section headings and performance notes are no longer sung as lyrics. Rehearsal marks attach to the bar they open, "Da Capo al Coda" keeps its jump, first endings and clef changes are kept, pickup bars are no longer turned into triplets, and guitar parts written in treble clef play an octave lower as printed. Pages of a multi-page scan are put back in reading order, staves on blurry photos and short final systems are no longer dropped, a part labelled "Bass" in a band plays as a bass guitar, and a second composer is no longer dropped.

PDF and photo imports read these more reliably. For example, verse 2 lyrics no longer shift a bar early, tempo words that are also sung syllables stay lyrics, and stacked tablature numbers are no longer read as time signatures.

PDF and photo imports keep more of the page. For example, two systems printed close together are no longer merged, Score and Parts PDFs no longer drop pages of new music, and cross-staff beams in piano arpeggios stay on their staff.

Scanning now reads the key printed in the part name, including the ♭ sign and short or leading forms such as "C Trumpet" or "A Clarinet". A tuning key, as in "Violin in D", is no longer taken for a transposition.

Scanned scores come through closer to the page. For example, string quartets and other ensembles now get their bracket, a printed "♩ = 136 ca." keeps its tempo, "Shaker", "Keys" and "Kit" parts get the right instrument, and boxed rehearsal marks are no longer read as chords.

Choose which AI features Flat can use, from the new AI features page in your account settings.

• All AI features. Nothing is turned off. This is the default for Flat accounts.
• No generative AI. Turns off the notation assistant and AI apps such as ChatGPT and Claude. PDF and photo import and automatic translation stay on. This is the default for Flat for Education accounts.
• No AI. Turns off everything above, plus PDF and photo import and automatic translation.

Connected AI apps are paused, not removed, and your credits and assistant conversations are kept.

You are reading it. Everything that reaches you, from new features to smaller fixes, is listed here in your language, with a link to the help centre whenever a page exists. Find it under Product Updates in the site menu: flat.io/changelog, flat.io/edu/changelog and opuscan.com/omr/changelog.

Articulations, Ornaments and Dynamics show their shortcut next to their title while open. The first time you use one, a tip explains that pressing a number after the shortcut selects an item in the category.

Since loop mode was introduced, adding a sync point while playback was paused placed it where playback had started rather than where you paused. It now lands at the paused position again, as before.

When an assignment limits how many times a student can listen, the playback button is now play/pause instead of play/stop: pausing and resuming is free, and a separate Stop button ends the listen deliberately rather than by accident.

Every MusicXML file Flat produces is now MusicXML 4.0, whatever the version of the file it was imported from.

• Swing markings are exported. MusicXML 4.0 can express swing playback, so a swung score now carries its swing (or explicit straight) marking into other applications. Flat already read it on import; it now writes it too.
• Tablature exports are valid. String tunings were missing a required attribute, which made every tablature export fail strict validation. They now pass.
• Every export is checked against the MusicXML 4.0 DTD, including compressed .mxl files, and validation failures are reported instead of silently shipping an invalid file.

Applications that only read MusicXML 3.1 open 4.0 files as before; only the swing marking is new to them.

Labels like "Sop.", "Hn." or "Violin II" now resolve to the right instrument, and the instruments you confirm before import are always applied.

Large scores are no longer split or merged into the wrong systems, and multi-bar rests keep their bar count.

A page engraved with smaller or larger staves no longer comes out at one fixed default size.

Syllables land on the right notes, and footers, dynamics or verse numbers are no longer sung. Titles and composers come from the right text, with credits in more languages.

Some PDFs store their Japanese text in an encoding that used to come out as unreadable characters. Lyrics and titles from these files are now read correctly, and an import set to several languages now uses all of them.

Tied notes now reach their second note in other notation apps, and a 22-bar rest is exported as 22 bars instead of one, so bar numbers match the original.

Fewer markings are dropped or misread, from chords in Sibelius fonts to "rit." no longer setting a tempo.

Photographing a monitor or tablet adds a fine pixel grid over the page that used to hide the staves. Imports now see through it.

Clefs and figured bass appear only on the staves that carry them, pickup bars are numbered as in print, multi-bar rests and trill lines export as valid MusicXML, and cross-staff piano voices stay on the correct staff.

A mark clipped at the top of the page, written inside a sentence, or glued to a rehearsal letter is now read. Relative directions such as rit. or accel. no longer invent a tempo.

• Worksheet creation options no longer show a stray backdrop.
• The Score & Assessment card and the Extra Tools footer no longer overlap their content when you reopen a published assignment.
• Class pages keep space below the last row or card.
• Exporting the people list works when no filter is set.

When a launch from your learning platform cannot be completed, you are taken to a page that explains what went wrong and what to check, instead of a generic error message.

• Flags no longer collide when two voices share a beat.
• First repeat endings align with the barline.
• The tuning box has the right background colour.
• Recorder scores: part names render correctly and the lowest notes can be selected.

Metronome equations and tempo words such as "poco allegro" stay where they belong.

Credits in Polish and Spanish, wrapped over two lines, split across text boxes, or set in the music font are now recognised.

If you close the review screen or lose the tab, the import no longer waits forever: after a day it continues with the title and instruments it detected, and the score lands in your library.

• An LTI launch with no available licence now says so, instead of claiming your plan does not include LTI (every plan does).
• Joining a school you already belong to, or setting up an LMS connection, shows a proper message instead of an error code.

The list showed your own name and avatar instead of the score owner's.

Partial Japanese words now match, and results no longer change unexpectedly as you type.

Lyric hyphens now appear under Kodály stick notation, stems no longer collide with tablature staves, touching ledger lines are spaced apart, and the one-bar repeat tool is disabled in the first bar.

In read-only views, clicking a notehead on another staff selects that note instead of the nearest one on the current staff. The greyed natural placeholder of an empty key signature and the system and page break markers, which only make sense while editing, are no longer drawn.

Scores shared for viewing always displayed transposing parts at written pitch. The viewer’s top bar now has the same concert pitch switch as the editor.

A two-bar repeat looked and played correctly when written, but came back scrambled the next time the score was opened.

Type a synonym or a common alternative name and Quick Search now finds the tool, with fewer searches returning no results. Lyric mode can now be opened from the palette too.

In a voice that contains a rest, clicking or entering a note could sound the following note, or nothing at all.

On electric bass and some other plucked-string instruments, dead notes on the lowest string played nothing. They now fall back to the nearest sample.

On some scores with a percussion part, a few notes kept sounding every few seconds after pausing or clicking in the score, as well as over normal playback.

MusicXML, MIDI and PDF imports now assign the high-quality version of each instrument when the account has access to them, instead of the standard sounds.

Some notation programs export per-note tuning offsets (a few cents sharp or flat) in the pitch itself. Flat used to reject the whole file; it now rounds these notes to the nearest written accidental and imports the score.

In some piano scores, the second voice inherited the staff of the previous one, so right-hand notes were written on the bass staff.

Busy systems that continue from the previous line no longer lose notes, a part that mixes triplet and plain systems no longer turns into rhythm slashes halfway through, and slurs and articulations placed on a double stop stay on the chord.

Text recognition now covers Vietnamese, Thai, Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada, plus 24 more Latin-script languages such as Czech, Hungarian, Croatian and Lithuanian. Words with accents and diacritics are also kept instead of being discarded as unreadable, and Hebrew text embedded in a PDF is no longer thrown away.

A bare "Horn" now resolves to the French horn instead of the cor anglais, "Alto" and "Tenor" on a band part to saxophones, brass band basses to the tuba, and a percussion clef misread on a pitched part is corrected. A vocal line that enters after a piano introduction is recognised as a voice instead of a second piano. On Chinese scores, the 詞 and 曲 labels route the names to lyricist and composer, and bilingual lyrics keep every verse. Changing the instrument of a drum part in the review step keeps the drum kit.

Photograph an open book and the import reads the left and right pages one after the other, instead of as one wide page.

Nested and numbered lists in assignment instructions keep their levels after saving. The Resource Library's Collections tab no longer empties when you filter by assignment type. "Add to collection" and "Move to collection" work again on the Samples page, and a Japanese title can be confirmed with Enter without saving the worksheet early.

When writing a text-response question, you can now attach a score to it. Students see the score next to the question while they answer.

A new Present Groups button in the Group’s Work tab opens a full-screen view of all groups and their current scores, designed for projection. Groups that have not started yet appear as an empty tile.

The Min and Max lines in pitch, interval, chord and fingering worksheets used to preview a treble clef regardless of which clef was chosen, which made bass clef ranges guesswork. With one clef selected, the picker now shows that clef; for fingering worksheets it follows the instrument.

Adding three or more notes, or grace notes, under an 8va bracket could draw the last notes an octave too high while playback stayed correct.

Switching a guitar part to an instrument without tablature used to silently discard bends, slides and other tab-only notation. A confirmation now tells you what will be lost before the change happens.

The redesigned tuplet menu replaces the old one for all accounts. On phones, the tuplet button no longer appears greyed out, and when a tuplet cannot be inserted, the reason is shown, as on desktop.

Bars under a "1." or "2." bracket used to play on every pass unless the bracket sat at the very end of the repeat. They now play only on the pass they belong to, wherever they sit, and the same applies with D.C. and D.S. jumps.

Chord symbols written with solfège names are recognised, extensions stacked over the chord ("sus4" under "A7(6)") are folded back onto it, and sharps and flats drawn in the notation font of a digital PDF are read instead of dropped. Chord symbols detected by text recognition are imported as chord notation rather than discarded.

Page and catalogue numbers no longer shift the bar numbering, "Words and Music by" and bare "by" lines no longer end up in the composer or subtitle, flush-left movement headings go to the movement title, boxed rehearsal numbers are kept, and expression text above or below the staff is imported as a direction rather than as a credit.

First verses and second-verse syllables near a neighbouring staff are recovered, the sung line no longer scatters across both staves of a grand staff, and copyright footers, end-of-piece credits, tempo words, stage cues and stray music-font glyphs are kept out of the lyrics.

Part names printed in the margin or in the header now match the right instrument more often for organ, choir, percussion and band scores, including abbreviations, plurals and ordinals ("1st & 2nd Horns in F"), and names in Japanese and other languages are looked up too. Dynamics, metronome marks and lyric syllables next to the staff are no longer mistaken for a part name. Transposing instruments are exported with their transposition so they play back at concert pitch.

A pickup bar is carried to every part instead of being created from a lone short bar, printed multi-bar rest counts are read as such, bars that overflow by one duration are corrected from the model's next best guess, and notes with a missing duration inherit the current one instead of disappearing. Unpaired ties and tremolos or noteheads the editor could not load no longer make the whole import fail.

New student groups are named "Group 1", "Group 2" instead of "Untitled Group 1"; the assignment panel on iPad and phones closes with an X students can find easily; the text-response box shows a "Write your answer here" placeholder; the TEKS assignments list sorts A to Z and no longer includes the type filter; the left navigation says Assignments rather than My assignments; the library search bar no longer gets cut off when scores are selected; and Product updates in the profile menu now opens the Flat for Education blog.

When you publish a Shared Writing assignment, a new collaboration mode lets you choose between splitting the class into groups, each on its own score, or putting every student on a single shared score for whole-class composing and arranging in real time. Groups remain the default. See Shared Writing assignments.

A published group assignment opens on Group's Work and an individual one on Student's Work; drafts still open on Details.

Submissions to audio-only performance assignments are available to listen to as soon as they are uploaded, for the student and the teacher.