Sibelius · OpenType · Free

Poinçon

A free music font for Sibelius notation software

About

Poinçon is a free music font for Sibelius, remapped from Eugene onto Sibelius's own font-mapping scheme.

It is named after the poinçon — the steel punch traditionally struck by hand to stamp noteheads, clefs, and accidentals into an engraving plate.

Sibelius edition requirement: Poinçon needs Sibelius Ultimate for full font support. Sibelius First cannot edit music fonts at all, and Sibelius Artist's font editing is limited — see Installation for details before downloading.

Poinçon is developed and maintained by Mikko Patama. You can support the project by buying him a coffee or contributing on GitHub.

Poinçon is released under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1, matching Eugene's license.

First bars of Clair de Lune engraved with Poincon music font

Font family

Sibelius splits a music font into several companion files, each covering a different role. Poinçon currently includes:

Poinçon Std

Main notation glyphs — noteheads, clefs, accidentals, rests, flags, time and key signatures.

Poinçon Text Std

Music glyphs used inline with text — dynamics such as ff and mf, and other symbols embedded in text objects.

Poinçon Special Std

Less common notation elements outside the core symbol set.

Poinçon Ornaments Std

Trills, turns, mordents, and other ornament figures.

Metronome, chord symbol, and rehearsal-mark companion fonts are not yet included — scores using those elements will fall back to another installed font until those are added.

Download

Poinçon 0.821
Includes PoinconStd.otf · PoinconTextStd.otf · PoinconSpecialStd.otf · PoinconSpecialExtraStd.otf · PoinconOrnamentsStd.otf
Download latest release View on GitHub

Installation

Before installing: confirm your Sibelius edition. Sibelius Ultimate supports the full setup below. Sibelius Artist can only import a pre-built house style with the font already configured — it cannot set up font substitutions itself. Sibelius First cannot use custom music fonts at all.
  1. Install the font files.
    macOS: click each of PoinconStd.otf, PoinconTextStd.otf, PoinconSpecialStd.otf, PoinconSpecialExtraStd.otf and PoinconOrnamentsStd.otf to open Font Book, then click "Install" to install system-wide. You can instead copy the files manually into:
    /Library/Fonts/
    Windows: double-click each font file and choose "Install", or copy the files manually into:
    C:\Windows\Fonts
  2. Start Sibelius and go to File > Preferences > Music Fonts.
  3. Click "Choose…" next to "Music font:" and select Poinçon Std. Click "Add Font" to add it to the music font list.
  4. Select Poinçon Std in the list. Copy the substitution settings shown below, then click "Set Substitutions" and close the Preferences window.
    Sibelius Music Fonts preferences with Poincon Std substitution settings
  5. In the "Command Search" box at the top right, type "Edit All Fonts". Choose Poinçon Std as the Main Music Font and Poinçon Text Std as the Music Text Font, then click OK.
    Sibelius Edit All Fonts dialog with Poincon Std and Poincon Text Std selected

Full instructions and version history are also kept on the GitHub page.

Credits and acknowledgements

Created by Mikko Patama. Letterforms drawn from Eugene, with visual source material from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica).

Sibelius has no official published specification for its font-mapping scheme. The Norfolk, Pori, and Lelandia font projects (NYC Music Services / Notation Central) were the primary reference for reconstructing it.

Special thanks to Dorico, MuseScore, and Sibelius forum users for testing and pointing out bugs.