0-line staff, yes, again (june 2026)

[Santiago_Galan]

Hi all,

I (we) need 0-line staff implemented natively in Dorico.

No hacks (thanks Fred Gunn), no turnarounds, no Adobe editing. Just a simple direct option.

It is a BASIC tool we need daily in music education and in musicological editions.

Please, add it to Dorico.

[JAMES_GILBERT]

Copy one file to one folder, restart Dorico and you’ve got the 0-line staff. Zero line staff - #9 by dspreadbury No hacks, don’t know what a turnaround is and certainly no Adobe editing (whatever that is).

[asherber]

I don’t think that file from Daniel works in Dorico 6. Try this one from @FredGUnn (which I think the OP is aware of).

Instrument with zero lines (0-line Staff)

Yeah, there was a change in how Dorico handles these between D4 and D5. I think I figured it out and detailed it in this post. Here’s a new doricolib file for D5 that creates both a 0-Line and 1-Line instrument in the Custom category. Additionally, it creates a Clef for the 1-Line Staff that defines the line to be middle C for ease of input. The image appears wrong in the right panel, but is correct in the score. If you delete that old doricolib file and use this one instead, it should work cor…

@Santiago_Galan This has been requested many times, and the dev team obviously knows about it. I’m sure they’ll get to it eventually, but in the meantime the alternate approach is very simple to work with.

[Santiago_Galan]

Dear James,

A hack and a turnaround is just what you haves dscribed. Please, with all due respect, read again my post.

The Adobe thing is the absurd suggestion in some threads here of exporting a pdf from Dorico and erase the staff lines with a dedicated software (!!!).

I do not want my message get lost in excuses.

I need 0-line staff native in Dorico. I hope some other educators and researchers need this too, so someday we will get this basic functionality in Dorico.

[Santiago_Galan]

Dear Aaron, thanks.

I am aware of what you say, thank you, but years pass and nothing changes. The “meantime” will soon be a decade, that seems too much.

I must repeat again (and will keep doing it while I am an Steinberg customer):

I need 0-line staff native in Dorico. I hope some other educators and researchers need this too, so someday we will get this basic functionality in Dorico.

All best.

[Janus]

@Santiago_Galan

A hack and a turnaround is just what you haves dscribed. Please, with all due respect, read again my post.

With respect to your language. The word is “workaround” (Turnaround is something very different)

[Janus]

@Santiago_Galan

I need 0-line staff native in Dorico. I hope some other educators and researchers need this too, so someday we will get this basic functionality in Dorico.

There are many notational features absent in Dorico that some users need.
The development team is aware of this and doubtless will add them.

Forum etiquette is that bumped threads are ignored.

[Romanos]

Truth be told, not only 0-lines, but custom instruments in general are a needed feature. I would use 4 lines and 2 lines, myself (various idioms of transcribed chant).

[Janus]

@Romanos

but custom instruments in general are a needed feature. I would use 4 lines and 2 lines, myself

Those are possible (Library>Instruments… you can set the number of staff lines, except for 0)

[Romanos]

It’s been a while since I experimented in this department, but if I remember correctly, we are still limited on some of the details. For instance, how clefs are handled on non-standard staves.

[k_b]

@Santiago_Galan

a BASIC tool we need daily in music education

Santiago, out of curiosity, how do these exercises work? If I remember my very first music exercises, we used a pencil and lined paper without clefs. Music from childhood on always had a connection to lined music paper.
I am interested to know, how this is handled differently today.

[Armin_der_Zweite]

Here, on Dorico 6, newest version, it is working indeed.

[jaskarbong]

@Santiago_Galan

I need 0-line staff native in Dorico.

Santiago, what about the “workaround” isn’t working for you? I’m just guessing since I don’t have an immediate need to use it — is it the extra fussing to eliminate things like clefs, bar lines and such, or something more?

Otherwise, you can save the 0-line (and 1-line) staff as a template file to use whenever you need it.

— Jim

[FredGUnn]

@Romanos

For instance, how clefs are handled on non-standard staves.

It’s super-hacky, but you can write doricolib files to add additional clefs. I have quite a few of them and the O and 1-Line doricolib file I posted here includes one. The really big issue with these is that there’s no mechanism to define key sigs for additional clefs, so they are only useful for notation only and only when there is no key sig in use. If/when a clef designer is implemented, a key sig designer really has to accompany it.

[Romanos]

This is ringing a bell to me now… I seem to recall having glyphs floating in weird places when I tried this, and I eventually decided to just wait until the feature matured. In one file where I used a 4 line stave, I ended up using invisible clefs and adding them back in as floating shift-x glyphs which I placed manually. At that point, one wonders whether or not it’s worth it.

[k_b]

If one has a 0-line staff, what would be the point of clefs and key signatures?
In my opinion a 0-line staff is not something a notation program should offer, the more I think about it..

[FredGUnn]

@k_b

In my opinion a 0-line staff is not something a notation program should offer, the more I think about it..

Gould’s book is full of 0-line staff examples. It’s also super common in educational materials. You don’t think Dorico should be able to handle this?

@k_b

If one has a 0-line staff, what would be the point of clefs and key signatures?

Not so needed in a 0-line, but certainly needed for staves with other numbers of lines, like in the 6-line example below:

[Santiago_Galan]

Janus,

Thanks for the language correction.

Not so much for the bumping reprimand. When the customers demands remain unatended for so many years, it is our right to keep asking.

[Santiago_Galan]

Thanks, FredGUnn.

Yours is just one excellent example, but there are so many more.

I guess many “composers” will not understand this demand, but many teachers and musicologists understand the need to write examples such as theese. That is what a real notation software (not just scoring) should do effortlessly.

[Santiago_Galan]

Just read the FredGUnn reply.

It is exactly what I am talking about.