Music manuscript paper, A4
Blank staves on A4 — the manuscript standard everywhere Letter is not, and a size worth matching rather than approximating.
Opens with these settings already loaded. Change anything you like, then download as PDF, PNG or SVG.
The extra height is a whole system
A4 is about 20 mm taller than Letter, which at normal stave sizes is one more system on the page. That is not a trivial difference for music: copying a piece laid out for A4 onto Letter reliably strands the final system, and a part with an orphaned last line is the kind of thing that causes a fumble in performance. Publishers specify the sheet for this reason.
Rastral size, not line spacing
What engravers specify is rastral size — the height of the whole five-line stave from bottom line to top. The traditional numbers run from No. 0 at about 9.2 mm down to No. 8 at about 3.7 mm. The spacing control here sets the gap between adjacent lines, so multiply by four for the stave height: 2.5 mm gives a 10 mm stave, generous and comfortable to write on.
How many staves
Twelve staves on A4 is the usual ruling for general-purpose manuscript. Ten or fewer suits vocal writing and sketching, where you need room for text beneath the notes. Sixteen and above is full-score territory, where you are already writing small. Set the spacing to control this rather than trying to cram — cramped noteheads are the main reason handwritten parts get misread.
Printing it accurately
This only measures correctly if your printer doesn't rescale the page. In the print dialog set Scale: 100% — not "Fit to page" or "Shrink oversized pages". If you're not sure it worked, print the calibration page, measure the ruler on it with a real ruler, and it will tell you exactly what your printer is doing to the page.