.mxl files

Table of contents

  1. Purpose
  2. Book level
  3. Sheet level

Purpose

These are zip-compressed files of XML music files formatted according to MusicXML specification.

Most, if not all, music editors are able to import / export this kind of file, making MusicXML format a de facto standard for music information exchange. Please refer to the detailed MusicXML specification.

Instead of .mxl files, which are compressed XML files, Audiveris can export plain (non-compressed) .xml files.
To do this, we just set the option org.audiveris.omr.sheet.BookManager.useCompression to false.

Book level

A book export provides:

  • Either one separate .mxl file for each movement found in the book (this is the default).
  • Or a single .mxl file for a global opus containing the separate movements. The notion of opus is fully defined by MusicXML, but not supported by many editors, if any. To make Audiveris use opus, we simply set the option org.audiveris.omr.sheet.BookManager.useOpus to true.

Sheet level

A sheet export provides:

  • One separate .mxl file for each page found in the sheet.