MARCH 13, 2025

What's New in Sibelius March 2025

We’re pleased to announce the immediate availability of our March release of Sibelius. This version builds on the recent release in February in which we introduced an automated way to create individual parts from a combined stave in the score. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you can read all about the ground-breaking feature here.

Our March release focuses squarely on bug fixes. We’ve trawled through the reports coming in from our customer visits, support cases, and posts on forums and Facebook communities to handpick the top issues that have been affecting people the most. These 40+ improvements cover stability issues and suggested changes dating back many years, so we’re very pleased to get them fixed.

The update is available to everyone on an upgrade plan or active subscription. You can download the Windows and Mac installers from your account at https://my.avid.com/products, and get the update from the Apple App Store for iOS and Google Play Store for Android. If you’re new to Sibelius, you can download the free 30-day trial at www.avid.com/sibelius. Now on to the improvements in this release:

 

Staff Filters and Decondensing Parts

We’ve made some UI improvements to Staff Filters when using them in Panorama. The name of the Staff Filter will always be visible on the left, and the Staff Filter is now wider, giving more space to the music without colliding with the blue instrument names and bar numbers.

Keypad

The Pitch Correction Tool on the Keypad now works for all notes in a passage selection, making it super easy to change pitches en masse, especially on mobile where you won’t necessarily have access to arrow keys.

Doing More For You

  • Fermatas/pauses are now pasted when copying bar rests that contain them.
  • Both Extend selection to top/bottom staff now work as expected.
  • It’s now possible to filter for Custom Articulation 2 in the Advanced Filter.
  • Sibelius now correctly stacks notes when entering chords using a computer keyboard. Previously, Sibelius would sometimes get the wrong octave.
  • Repeat bars now play back tremolos.

Tuplets

We’ve tidied up a number of small problems with tuplets. They are:

  • Converting a passage of tuplets to Voice 2 no longer loses articulations.
  • Attached text is no longer lost when converting a tuplet into another voice.
  • Lyrics are no longer lost when using Alt+1,2,3,4 on a tuplet.
  • Slurs are no longer lost when changing voice of a tuplet.

Flexi-time

A number of fixes have been made to Flexi-time:

  • You can now more reliably use your MIDI device after using Flexi-time.
  • When selecting different staves in your score, Sibelius will now always choose the right sound when you next play your MIDI keyboard.
  • The metronome click will no longer needlessly stay on after using Flexi-time.

International Decimal Place/Comma

It’s now possible to edit numerical values in the Document Setup and other dialogs when using any locale with a decimal separator different than English. This includes the following:

  • It's possible to enter a decimal point in Document Setup when running Sibelius in French.
  • In Magnetic Layout Options, it's now possible to change values to two decimal places.
  • You can now enter a decimal place or a comma into numerical fields when using a Swedish keyboard.
  • In Document Setup on mobile, it's also possible to enter a decimal point when using a Bluetooth keyboard.

General Bug Fixes

  • You can now undo when re-inputting pitches and Sibelius will step back through the changes you’ve made with the right selection.
  • The score no longer jumps around during note entry when in vertical page view.
  • Right-click menu is way more reliable now. No longer will Sibelius slightly drag the score to allow you to get the right-click menu when you need it. Also, objects moved with a right-click gesture are undoable.
  • When manually changing the font size of a text object using the Text tab of the Ribbon, Sibelius no longer modifies the size of another text object when clicking on it in the score.
  • When hiding a note within a unison and undoing it, Sibelius will now correctly undo the hide action rather than just changing the selection.
  • Sibelius will correctly draw any custom view options immediately when starting a new score.
  • Systems no longer shift up when adjusting system spacing after Auto-Optimize is used.
  • It’s much easier to drag a note to a different string on a tab/lute stave and no longer causes other notes to jump.
  • Slurs printed from PDFs of scores originally created in Sibelius 6 will no longer appear as big black blobs.
  • Sibelius is no longer unresponsive when using middle-button-click while nothing is selected in the score on Mac.
  • The “Header After First Page” text style now appears in newly generated parts when “Subsequent pages” is checked in Multiple Part Appearance for all parts. Previously, Sibelius would sometimes ignore this and generate parts where the “Header After First Page” text is hidden.
  • We’ve reimplemented the ability for hidden or filtered-out notes to be transposed, both by the arrow keys and by the transpose function (Shift + T). All other operations remain unchanged.
  • Notate Glissando now works regardless of the order of the selection you made to the music.
  • When the Quick Start is disabled on launch, Sibelius now correctly opens the Blank manuscript paper and benefits from all the recent House Style settings we’ve been introducing.
  • Selection is no longer lost when using the dot key on the Keypad when you have a passage selection.
  • The previews in the Quick Start are now high resolution when using fractional scaling on Windows.
  • Some ManuScript commands had an extra white space after them, so we’ve removed them.
  • In the Instruments dialog, instruments no longer disappear or fail to change order when deleting 1 of 2 staves of a 2-stave instrument.
  • When using a screen reader and entering notes, Sibelius now correctly announces Keypad property changes. Sibelius no longer crashes when applying Notate Glissando to two notes of the same beat.
  • Sibelius no longer crashes when hiding a note that has a gliss line going to it.

And that’s it! As you know already, we release updates to Sibelius regularly, so we’ll be back soon with details about our next release. In the meantime, please check out all our releases on our What’s New page.

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