18/03/2020 Sibelius Quick Tip : Text Wildcards List – OF NOTE

OF NOTE
… music notation tips & tutorials by Robert Puff & expert contributing authors.

08/27/2014 BY ROBERT PUFF

Sibelius Quick Tip : Text Wildcards List

A wildcard is a special kind of text object that can insert text from somewhere else. For
instance, Sibelius has a number of useful wildcards for various page text elements (title,
subtitle, composer, copyright etc). When you change the information in Score Info, the text on
the page will automatically update.

The syntax for text wildcards is a backslash, followed by a dollar sign, then the wildcard label
and nally, a closing backslash. Case does not matter; they can be all upper case, all lower
case, or mixed case.

Sibelius also has some formatting change wildcards, which work exclusively within the
Score Info dialog. The syntax for these is simply the command encased in a pair of
backslashes.

Text wildcards are designed to appear on the page; as stated above, formatting wildcards
(such as for bold, italic, new line etc) can only be used in Score Info.

Here is a list of the available text wildcards for Sibelius:

\$PARTNAME\ evaluates to a list of the instruments in the part, each instrument separated
by a carriage return.
\$HEADERPARTNAME\ evaluates to a list of the instruments in the part, separated by a
comma and all on the same line.
\$TITLE\
\$COMPOSER\
\$COPYRIGHT\
\$ARRANGER\
\$PUBLISHER\
\$ARTIST\
\$InstrumentChanges\
\$MOREINFO\
\$USER\ – current logged in user
\$DATELONG\ – full date in locale-speci c format, e.g. “March 4, 2005”
\$DATESHORT\ – short date in locale-speci c format, e.g. “04/03/05”
\$FILEPATH\ – full path to the current le
\$FILENAME\ – lename of the current le
\$FILEDATE\ – full date that the current le was last saved
\$TIME\ – current time (insert this, then zoom in and out every second!)
\$PAGENUM\ – current page number

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18/03/2020 Sibelius Quick Tip : Text Wildcards List – OF NOTE

\$YearOfComposition\
\$ComposerDates\
\$OpusNumber\
\$Subtitle\
\$Dedication\
\$Copyist\

\$NumPages\ – total number of pages (as of Sib 7.13)

Here are the available formatting wildcards for Score Info:

\n\ New line

\B\ Bold on
\b\ Bold off
\I\ Italic on
\i\ Italic off
\U\ Underline on
\u\ Underline off
\fArial Black\ Font change to Arial Black (for example)
\f_\ Font change to text style’s default font
\s123\ Size change to 123 (units are 1/32nds of a space, not points)

Creating and using Wildcards (Text Inserts) in Sibelius

Page Numbering in Sibelius : Ranges : X of Y

More information about Wildcards is available in the Sibelius Reference, starting on page
260.

SIBELIUS, TEXT

QUICK TIPS, TEXT

One Reply to “Sibelius Quick Tip : Text Wildcards List”

Philip Rothman
0 8 / 2 9 / 2 0 1 4 AT 6 : 4 2 A M

A handy reference, Robert! Wildcards are very powerful. Here are a few more related posts.

http://www.sibeliusblog.com/tips/add-text-formatting-changes/
http://www.sibeliusblog.com/tutorials/go-wild-with-text-wildcards/
http://www.sibeliusblog.com/tips/unleash-power-text-wildcards/

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